Jul 12, 2012

#944 Backyard Inspirations.

With only a couple hours’ break in the rain that’s been thankfully bearing down on us for days after a month-long drought, Ben did supersonic yard maintenance and mowed, weedeated, bagged and blew off the lawn in a little over an hour.

As he was hanging the leaf blower up in the shop, the rain came flooding down again. What miraculous timing!

So we spent most of the evening on the porch listening to the rain, reading. He, Ernest Hemingway, me, This Old House magazine.

And in that magazine, I found the most incredible backyard design inspiration. Our backyard is lacking in any kind of design or shape, really. There are beds around the perimeter, a peach tree, a little stone patio in the shady back corner beside the grills. The grass is worn and bare in the trails from the gate to the house and from the house to the workshop. The workshop is a leaky mess of mostly rotten wood that will have to be torn down sooner than later. So we sat on the porch, having bowls of chili for our rainy dinner and making plans. We could…

1. Make curving stone paths with grass growing between from the house to the shop and gate.

2. Run electricity to an old lantern and hang it from the oak tree limb above the patio.

3. Get cozier furniture and put mortar between the stones in the patio to keep grass from growing through.

And best of all, tear down the existing shop and build a craftsman style one-car garage to match our house where Ben could mechanic on cars and where the deep freeze, extra refrigerator and and paint cans could live. We would build it straight ahead from the carport instead of where the shop is right now.

I know these dudes would love it. They’d especially love rolling in mud then laying on the cushion in that cozy chair or perhaps digging trenches around each and every stone. Cause they love us like that.

Now, let’s scrounge up the money to do it. Hmmm…

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