I love everything about backyards: hammocks, kids, dogs, cats, neighbors, grills, grass underfoot, moon and stars at dusk, charcoal, flowers, bubbles, water, rock collections, sand, picnics, lemonade, hide and seek, flip-flops, tanning, straw hats, and reading on Sundays. These are wholesome, simple pleasures and I live a pretty simple life.
But somehow in our different moves or in an effort to be wise on one income so that I can stay at home, we’ve neglected a long desired dream of mine: A moss-covered patio with hammocks and an arbor shading it overhead. This was okay with me for a long time. I don’t have to have everything. And a lot of things just don’t matter that much to us. But, it’s time. So now, 8 years and three moves later, it is starting to take shape. My plan was to go with inexpensive and re-purposed.
I have collected a lot of flat, broken concrete pieces from new building sites around town to form our path and patio. Set a bit apart, like flagstones, for moss to grow between. The arbor will be made of cypress logs from a nearby sawmill as support posts and painted pine for the arbor itself. The bougainvilla have been waiting patiently with me all these 8 years for a permanent home in the ground and something to meander up. When we get back from my next yoga certification trip, we’ll get busy.
Where was I? Oh yeah, Arizona. We left New Mexico through the Lincoln National Forest, so beautiful, seeing Lincoln (of Billy the Kid fame) and Capitan. I had lots of…
Tried adding dried calendula to my castille soap Wednesday. (I have to reap something from this garden!) So, while having coffee with my sister, I pried off petals, separating seed….