A TARDIG?

Our October weather was glorious and so far November has been as well, up until last night.  A cold front blew through and our temperature has dropped from the upper 60's to the 40's.   Oh, well, we all knew it had to come to an end sometime.  I've been working on clearing out all the dead vegetation and tying up the loose ends.   Since it's raining at the moment, I'm going to tie up some loose ends about what went on around here this summer.

Every year we try to build something new to keep things interesting.  Lately we've been focusing much more on structures than garden additions because, truth be told, there's far too much garden here as it is.  By the time I'm done weeding this place, it's time to start over at the beginning again.

 Carl keeps telling people we're going to downsize by fifty percent though even he has a hard time figuring out which bed to eliminate.  Downsizing isn't all that easy either; where do you go with all the plants you want to save?  We do have some plans to change the rock formation  on the back side of the Pachyberm, though.  More rock equals less weeds, that's my idea of downsizing.

Down in the Quarry and yes, there's weeds.

  For most gardeners, spring is the most intense time of year, and for us, that's definitely the case. Starting in April there's my annual seeds to plant and propagation antics, and once it warms up, there are lawns to mow here, at Mom's and the Back Eight.  The first of June is annual planting time for me which takes up at least two weeks.  Once the flowers are in the ground, it's time to weed.  And weed.  Usually by July we have been through the gardens at least twice and the weeds are under control for a few minutes.  That's when our thoughts inevitably turn to junk.

Yes, junk abounds around here, sad to say, almost more than the weeds.  Carl had ideas of what he wanted to create from all the stuff he's collected over the last fifty-something years.  Grand ideas, but unfortunately, there is never enough time in the day.  Though he doesn't often say it out loud, he has been admitting that he won't live long enough to build everything he wanted to.  I'd be thrilled if he would downsize his junk collection by fifty percent, but it would be as hard for him to part with the junk as it is for me to part with the garden areas.  Hmmmm....seems we're stuck, doesn't it?

Back in July, I was out in the Back Eight surveying some of the scrap iron we have waiting for inspiration.  Probably more than ten years ago, a friend of ours asked Carl if he had any use for some  iron stampings in an oak design.  They were originally railings on her father's house, but were removed at some point.  We loaded them up on our trailer and they were put with the pile of 'someday' projects.

Someday came and it was time to create something before the poor stampings rusted away into nothingness.  Carl (who really doesn't need any more work to do) semi-reluctantly loaded the railings on to the car trailer and hauled them up to the front yard.

There he sat, contemplating what he could make out of a few hunks of old railings.

Carl, The Thinker, wondering what he got himself into

My idea was to make a small structure for the garden just off the house.  We had the cast iron planter there (another Carl Original) but the garden was a little blah.

Time for a change?

I was picturing something like a small archway or a little gazebo-y thing; Carl sighed and said, ok, I'll take to the shop and see what I can come up with.

In a little under ten hours, he was done with the, uh, um, Thing.  We didn't know what to call it.  And do we paint the Thing?  Or leave it half white, half rusty?  Carl took the high pressure washer and blasted off the flaking paint chips. 

Blasting off!

 Once he had most of the paint off, the debate went on, do we paint it, or leave it rust?  I told Carl that even though I know very little about the science fiction show, 'Dr. Who', I couldn't get over how much the Thing reminded me of the police call box that Dr. Who uses for time travel AKA, a TARDIS which is an acronym for 'Time and Relative Dimension in Space'.

A Police Call Box cleverly disguising a TARDIS.

I liked the thought of having a place to go in the garden when I'm sick of weeding that might magically transport me away from my troubles, something like a Time and Relative Dimension in Garden?  TARDIG? 

And that was what led me to pick a very TARDIS-y color of paint.  Carl was not sure of my selection at all (and neither am I) but it's only paint and paint can be changed.

Our very own TARDIG.

So, to review, we went from this:

To this:

I will say one thing for the TARDIG, it really stands out. 

Good or bad?  Time will tell.

I will admit, the Thing is different.  And Blue.

But heck, they make a lot of different colors of spray paint.