Paint

It's annoyed me for some time, the way the garden shed looks. The brown flanks faded, the equally tired red on the doors (which still puzzles me - was that a paint mismatch?) and the unattractive slate blue trim we are slowly eradicating from the house as well.  Add to that the decorative crossbucks on the doors pulling off or bits fallen away, and it was a sad but functional little shed that needed some love.

I told Himself one day, "Fix the trim on the shed doors and I'll paint it."  "Really?"  "Sure", and he and The Boy got to work on it not long after.

One of my trips to Lowe's I picked up brown paint. Himself, when asked to do the same, was daunted by the prospect. "I'm no good at picking colors."  "It's brown. Just...pick a brown."  "No, no", he avers, "You're better at the colors."

So I chose a shade called Labrador, like a dark rich chocolate.  We had white for the trim, and I added a thickly napped roller for the textured side walls, brushes for the trim. And I waited.

Of course, with a project ready to embark upon, my fingers itched and the weather did not cooperate. Until one day, it did. And off I went to the shed, paint and pan and roller and step stool and brushes in hand.  I worked east to north to west to south - sunwise - painting the body of the shed until I reached the fussy bits between the door trim. 

The trim came next, working sunwise again, but the evening snuck up before I could get all the way around again, and my work was ended for that day. The next fine Fall day saw the trim finished, a second coat put on (that slate blue resists to the last), and all but the two topmost boards on each gable end completed.

This is how she stood for some small time, until Himself set up a ladder like a little scaffold just tall enough for me to reach the last boards, and the shed was done. It looks fresher, not so tired, and I look out of my office window and think, "Some of that trim will need another coat come Spring..."

Alone in the back, the sounds of the squirrels foraging in the leaves or leaping from branch to trunk, the steady repetitious motion of the roller or brush...this is zen. I don't mind painting, not at all, but I'm not allowed to paint inside - I'm much too messy at it.  But if you've a shed or a barn needs painting...well, then, I'm your girl.

Falling

We are in full-on Autumn.  Himself can blow the grounds clear of leaves daily, only to wake up with a new carpet laid down over night. It's time to clean up, winterize, settle ourselves and the house for winter.

We spent one weekend clearing brush in the back. The cedar deadfalls that ring the cleared part of the property have always been on the list of things that need attention, and attention they got. My parents sad little chainsaw wasn't up to the challenge, which justified a new one for Himself as his birthday gift from me. We spent most of one weekend with assorted implements of destruction, cutting back thorn canes and Russian olive, ragweed and pokeberry all overgrown and out of control. We engaged the enemy in the northwest corner, working our way slowly eastward, gradually gaining ground. 

Deconstructing the dead-falls was an exercise in engineering and planning, untangling one fallen tree from another. Pulling brush and weeds out to the tarps, pulling the full tarps one by one to the curb ahead of the town's schedule brush pick-up week. Gradually, we cleared enough out to take one whole dead tree out, and then another. Himself limbed each and we stacked them to the side of the shed where his friend would eventually come to collect them.

We found treasure - 7 concrete cylinders, about 12" tall by 6" in diameter. They were not all together but were in the same area. Their provenance is a mystery, and I wonder if more lurk under fallen trees we have yet to conquer.

The reclamation of the woods edge is not complete, nor do I expect that it will be any time soon. But we have started and we can see progress, and that may be enough to entice us to engage the enemy another weekend if the weather and our bodies cooperate.

At the end of the weekend's efforts, we walked into the woods that are hidden from the house by the dead-falls. The Boy and Himself had made this trip before but I had not.  It's all cedars back there, straight through to the power lines. No underbrush, just cedar duff and dead limbs, some empty beer bottles and forgotten golf balls.  Once under the power lines, the undergrowth slows your travels, but provides cover for a woodchuck or skunk den and another larger den a bit away. Fox? Raccoon?

I am happy to stand out there and look around...no property is clear close up to that point. I hope that it stays that way. Knowing the wildlife might find a bit of sanctuary in our part of suburbia...well now, that makes the sore shoulders from hauling tarps and caretaking the land very much worthwhile.