Brielle's Avalon

I needed a bit of a spot or two in my evolving Zen-ish garden to have a cup of tea or something when I sit and enjoy the spot and contemplate whatever my mind wanders to. This isn’t the finished garden (is any garden ever finished?) but it is as far as I’ve gotten today. This side of the house and yard is dry, narrow and not a good place for growing anything, at least not if you want to walk around the 3’x18′ space. It’s only use before now was access to what used to be the phone service and the local cats were using it as a privy. We’ll see how pleasant I can eventually make this area.

I started with a rummage through the woodpile for seating and table ideas. Yes, I do need to re-stack the woodpile.

I found a stump that’s just about level and just right for a low seat up against the wall.

Now for a place to put a cup of tea or something. More rummaging through the woodpile turned up one option but since I bumped my head on the feature art tree while placing it, it’s going to the front seating spot. The highest spot is level and I might later attack the other one or two to make them level too.

Then it hit me (thank you tree)! I can hang something from the tree branch to be a table! I have clothes line, I just have to find something…something…more rummaging through the woodpile…more rummaging through the lumber pile…wander back through the porch and there it it! A bit of plywood board, slightly warped but perfectly aged!

I grabbed the drill and bits and chose the biggest bit to match the clothesline size. Yes, I’ve been keeping my extra clothesline on one of my pottery greenware shelves.

Drilling was easy enough from the top. I eyeballed it since this is kind of an overall wabi-sabi project anyway. No hard and fast measurements needed since the clothesline will do the leveling.

The poor board was so well aged I had to drill from the bottom as well to clean up the scrappy bits that wanted to catch anything coming through the holes. This side looks a bit ragged but that’s OK, it’s the bottom.

Now to put away the power tools and accidentally take a self portrait.

Time to hang the table! Put the end of the clothesline through a hole,

Tie an overhand knot

and pull it tight to keep it from coming back out of the hole.

Now decide where the table needs to be to so I can cut the line and tie another overhand knot.

Push the end of the line through another hole (the back hole was easier for me), tie an overhand knot and pull it tight before figuring out how long the next bit of line needs to be. Since the branch curves it won’t be the same length as the first line. Yes, that is a shower handle on the knob of the tree. It fit so it sits. Turn it to adjust whatever needs adjusting.

Ta daaah! Done and ready for tea. Of course I need to do a lot more work, like rake the ground, put down sand or pea gravel, make a Torii Gate and some lanterns, plaques and maybe figurines to artfully scatter around. Maybe I’ll have time for that after I put in the vegetable garden on the other side of the fence in a couple weeks. Of course, this whole project will take time and I’ll probably keep adding and subtracting and tweaking things for as long as I’m here (side note, this house is being left to my Great Grandkids who aren’t born yet).