New Life for Old Things

Shortly after we settled into this house, I mentioned in one of my garden dispatches ("First Lessons from the New Garden") that the previous owners of our house left behind a lot of items, most of which were in the fenced pool area. The inventory was pretty overwhelming. As we extricated some garden statues from the lusty grip of ivy and discovered other objects as we trimmed overgrown shrubbery, I began relocating the items to a collection area outside of the fence. I rather unkindly named the area "The Graveyard" and made plans to find everything a new home, even if the home had to be the trash bin.

A mere representative sampling of the menagerie

Now that I've had some time to consider each item carefully, I've revised my estimation of a few. They've been hanging around here for a while because I can't excuse simply throwing everything away, though we did quickly dispatch the items that fell apart as we tried to move them. Other things, such as the various statuary, are in the barn awaiting a good scrubbing (and maybe repainting) before they are offered up for sale. But I've decided that I will keep a few things and repurpose them.

The first item reclaimed from The Graveyard is this bird bath. We found it hidden deep inside some overgrown shrubs. Initially we were puzzled by the strange cord inside the bird bath, but now that I've had time to inspect it, the cord makes a little more sense. It seems that this particular bird bath had, at one point, the capability of circulating water. The flex tubing that carried the water from the basin to a snail attached to the rim has all but rotted away, but no matter. I don't think I like the idea of a snail spouting water from his head into a basin. In any case, the previous owners had drilled three holes in the bottom of the bowl, so they certainly didn't use it as intended, either.

Needs a new paint job

I've carefully brushed every spot on this with a good wire brush. It now has a fresh coat of paint on it and is awaiting a reconfiguration, which I'll show everyone in a couple of weeks once I finish it and get it into place. The snail was a similar light green, but he's had a makeover, too.

The copper paint gives him a little pizzazz

Since my assessment of this odd collection has mellowed, I'm pretty sure I can find a way to turn this monstrosity into a potting bench. It just needs to be cut down to Green B size. At present, the sink area comes up to my shoulders. Stay tuned.

This thing will have to lose a lot of stuff