Saturday brought another glorious day in southern CT. It's forecast to be 77 here on Wednesday...77! But then on Friday we'll go back down to the normal high 50s and low 60s. It's really hard not to get ahead of myself in the garden. So instead of playing with plants that don't need fussing (none of our perennials are ready for dividing), I decided it was time to finally turn our attention to finishing the shed. You may recall that the shed was delivered last April and we finally assembled it in October. Well we didn't get around to getting the plywood floor in before it got really cold, so we used a huge tarp we had on hand and locked it for the winter. VPH emptied it all out:
And off we went to Home Depot for the floor. Some complicated math (it just fit into our car cut into 4 pieces) and $50 later we had our floor. Even better, it fit the shed perfectly:
Then the tough part of the project...cleaning out the old pop-up shed. Something got into the birdseed over the winter, the roof ripped along the ridge-line, and well gross. I'm just glad we had stored the chair cushions in the new shed for the winter:
We sorted into keep, give, and trash with me doing the grabbing inside the shed. It took a while, but it was well worth the effort. I moved the very last set of shelves towards the door of the empty shed and screamed:
Four mice:
They scurried around as frightened as I was:
We moved over to the patio to give them some space to escape, but they didn't go far. I even poked at this one with a stick and it still wouldn't leave the marsh marigolds along the front of the shed:
VPH shoveled most of the seed out into the garbage and I threw this photo up on craigslist. Someone's supposed to come pick it up on Tuesday. I love it when people will come pick up our garbage! I offered the tarp too, but not the bungee cords.
We decided that items that we used once or twice a year didn't need to be in the shed, so this stuff will go into the basement. VPH loves that rake, but it's too tall for the shed:
Look how much we got in there and how nice and spacious it feels:
The chair cushions take up a lot of space, but we had room for the leftover plywood from the 2 sheets we had to buy, our large garden tools, and the lawnmower:
Then we have outdoor living items like the chairs in a bag, large serving dishes, furniture covers, pinon wood, scrap wood for the firepit, candles, citronella torch fuel, smaller garden tools, and tucked into the corner the leaf-blower/sucker and weed-whacker:
Some landscape fabric and the ridiculously large tarp are drying out on the gravel patio:
We still have to do something with all of this stuff behind the shed. Some of the containers will be used for potatoes, some for compost, but a good bit of the haphazard compost pile will be dug out and used for the new raised bed we'll be building soon. I'd like to replace it with this fun project I found, but modified to fit the space:
And then I celebrated the end of a very productive day with the first fire of 2010:
I have a feeling I'll be sitting out there again soon!
Wow - am I impressed, both with your sense of organization and the fact that you had the camera ready for the 'mouse' picture. I think 'mouse in marsh marigolds' is very calendar-worthy.
Posted by: mummer | April 06, 2010 at 09:00 AM
Mom -- I always have my camera on a table near by or in my pocket. And I don't think mouse in marsh marigolds is making the calendar since some of my friends already squeal at the spider.
Posted by: Heather's Garden | April 08, 2010 at 11:45 AM
Yes, you are organized. Do you do closets for others? I could really use that expertise.
Posted by: Layanee | April 09, 2010 at 07:46 AM
Layanee -- You should see me pack a car! You don't want me to organize your closets because I am ruthless. Something happened to me in college living in a small dorm room with another person and now I have to have everything in just the right place and if there's no room for it out it goes!
Posted by: Heather's Garden | April 09, 2010 at 12:13 PM