of sunlight & weathered wood

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edge of potting table :: came with house

i went out to water thefarm, & quickly became distracted by how beautiful the early morning light played upon the weathered wood. the poor plants shall have to be seen to later, as i never made it as far as the hose. instead, i grabbed my camera & took photos. here are some i thought you might like. the captions tell what you're looking at, & from where things came. enjoy!

legs of  dining chairs (replete with cobwebs) :: friend was getting rid of them

seat of victorianesque park bench :: free, from a closed school

back of a wood & iron bench :: another from the closed school

back of old chair :: found curbside 

side of a wine barrel :: neighbors left behind when moving

back of an adirondack bench :: found curbside

seat of a child's picnic table :: found in bushes

top of a make-shift table :: found curbside

back of the same make-shift table (1 of 2 chairs) :: thrift store

i know i should protect wooden things with sealant before setting them out of doors, but a) i am too lazy, & 2) i find weathered wood to be so rich & beautiful. there is something about the graying wood, the chips of paint left behind, the slight warping, & the occasional moss... sigh.


i do have to paint those dining chairs, however. the seats have split, making them quite unusable. remember those dining chairs on the series friends? they were each a different color. perhaps that's what i'll do. i have cans of paint with only a bit left, so wouldn't need to purchase any. that would make my chairs: white, sage, barn red, & buttery yellow. of course, this means i need to find the time to glue the seats first. oh the ever-growing to-do list.

thanks for visiting. i hope you enjoyed my babbling the photos. don't you wish early morning sunlight lasted all day?

~peace.

gardening with found objects - the sequel

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elfling needed a bit of fresh air & vitamin d, (he has a pestilence) so whilst he was staring zombie-like at a line of ants, i snapped a few more photos of treasures to share with you.

that ladder is another curbside treasure found by thehobbit. it is from an old bunk-bed! i cannot tell you how peeved he was that i wouldn't let him use this in his bedroom. for what? i asked. dunno. was his reply. i am all for using objects in creative ways, but dunno is a bit on the vague side even for me. the ladder is only a few feet tall, so i have it propped behind a potted tomato. this variety is patio. a compact plant that thrives in containers. the fruit is round, about the size of a roma, & delicious. i've grown it a few years, & highly recommend it.

this is the beginning of elfling's play area. the found object is the base. i think it is an old metal shower bench. my friend pom found it, & knew i'd like it. the top is a new galvanized bucket that manlyman's mom gave to me a few months ago. i had planned on using the bucket for parties, but elfling had other plans. i love how they fit perfectly together. i won't attach them. leaving them separate means that elfling can take the bucket down, & drag it around the yard.

i love this little picnic table. i found it many years ago, in the ivy next to a whole foods parking lot. the whole thing is freakywobbly, so thehobbit & his friends have never sat at it. in the past it was covered in pots of flowers & herbs. currently we use it in the bbq area - that's our teeny camping grill atop it.

the stool isn't used in a creative way; we sit on it. i have no idea what it's doing in the bbq area, & didn't even think to put it away before taking the photo. i'm wild like that. in which wild means lazy.

thanks for visiting my garden - see you soon!

~peace.

gardening with found objects

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it's no secret that i love to surround myself with old things. i don't know what it is that draws me to them, but draw me they do. in thebelfry i try to keep my love of the shabbier things to a minimum. i do decorate with mostly old, thrifted, found, rescued, etc objects inside, but i save the more rustic treasures for outside. poor manlyman can only be pushed so far. he's a dainty thing ;)

thehobbit, aka my partner in treasure hunting, spotted the chair a few weeks ago. someone was actually throwing it away! it has no broken bits, & is as sturdy as can be. because it has lots of rusty metal fancies on it though, i opted to not use it in any of the seating areas. i'd hate for someones clothing to snag, or for elfling to scratch himself. it makes a fabulous plant stand, don't you think?

another recent curbside treasure was a pair of 8ft tall wooden shutters. we toyed with turning them into a headboard, but that would require actual time in which to get things done. instead i leaned them against the garage wall, & planted a tomato at the bases. this variety is indeterminate, so my hope is it will grow up the shutters, then onto the garage roof.

this area is thehobbit's pride & joy. please ignore the tall grasses growing through the nasturtium, & up behind the chairs. he wanted a shelf on which to display his succulents, but we didn't have anything that suited. i remembered that we'd used 2 kiddie chairs pushed together, as a plant stand, elsewhere, so thought i'd give it a try here.

luckily it worked! i had a pair of wobbly chairs that were perfect, except for their rush seats. well, to be  honest there was so little rush left that they pretty much had no seats. the top from a wonky table fixed that problem, et voila! a hobbity shelf.

what you cannot see through the tall grasses in need of pulling is on what that fern is sitting. it's an old metal stool that i rescued from a curb long before i had a partner in treasure hunting. wow. i almost wrote a tiny partner. sometimes i forget that at 13 thehobbit is now my height. not so tiny.

there are, to the bewilderment of my sweet husband, many more found treasures in the garden & on the farm, but those will have to wait for another day. have a lovely one, do!

~peace.
because i know some will ask :: the pretty glass things on thehobbit's shelf are his telephone pole insulators. my mother-in-law has a vast collection, & has lovingly shared a few with him.