Tuesday’s Things.......

The columbine is putting out a lot of buds this spring.  It looks like it would like a little more sunshine and less cold and wet.  The largest percentage of them are not open yet. It reminds me that I would like to find some of our wild columbine to plant.  As a farm boy in southern Iowa I remember bringing it up to the house from the timber and an growing it on the north side of the house.  It was still blooming there when my parents moved off the farm.

Our newest garden is now planted.  The dogwood looks good with the hardy geraniums planted around it. As the bush grows larger through the years we can just plant less geraniums.

The surviving jack in the pulpit is getting bigger.  The leaves that seem to shade the  pulpit are becoming larger.  The other two that I had there are not going to venture up this year. A lot of the lily of the valley also was trampled down by workmen. It too will survive in the next season.

We are using some of the furniture that we already have in our sunroom. The trunk shown here is one of the things we wanted to put in the sunroom. A chest is not furniture but it is if it is a coffee table.

When we were first married 35 years ago, we were up at the cabin in Minnesota that summer.  A neighbor to us had begged a large electric spool from the company and she took it apart using the the top circle of it as a table.  She built a set of legs for the base and these boards were left over.  I thought the boards were interesting and they did work well for this use.  My wife and I nailed them into panels and I built a frame to turn the panels into a box with a lid.

The insides were made from scraps of wood from the barn.  It isn’t pretty inside but the lid usually isn’t open. It was moved from Grand Rapids, Minnesota to our home when we sold the cabin.  We stored all the old kids pictures, old newspapers and papers related to all family memories.  It was moved to the newer house and was destined to be in the basement until we built the sunroom.  It has moved up in the world and does work well as a rustic thing agains outdoor patio furniture.

The boards are each curved as originally they were placed in a circle to make the spool center. Neither one of us remember where and when we got the oak tray but it made the move and was hiding on top of the refrigerator.  It works perfectly to sit on top of the chest. We spent our first morning out there with the wind blowing and rain falling once in a while.  Our heater/cooler does work well.


I have a couple of old end tables that I want to sand and refinish.  Problems for me is to find the electric sander.  I have to do some digging through the things in the workroom to find it.  Sadly it might be at the other house. If it isn’t here, I will be hand sanding. They are small and all surfaces are plain and simple.  I can’t work outside today as the rains and cold are bad.  We had to bundle up to be outside to bring the love seat up the 15 steps of the deck yesterday.

Thanks for stopping by today.