Reclaimation Imagination and Extract of Time

Garage sale plastic planter box

 Most of my outdoor projects are complete now.  I still have some caladiuims to pot up but the front porch, side garden, and play space are completed.  There will be tweaking, but the heavy lifting is over.

I found two platic planters at a garage sale, $3 each that were perfect for the front porch railing.  I have never used these before so it was a treat to arrange them with petunias, geraniums, calibrachoa and marigolds.

I will do a little rearranging in the front flower bed because some of the lilies are in the wrong spots.  They were all major clearance from Lowe's when I visited last fall.  Some of the plants that were put in the front are too tall and need to be moved to the back after blooming.  Thanks to Penny Blaney for the life lesson that you can move flowers and you should keep moving them until you get it right.

The play space is a narrow strip that had a pile of rock and

Back passage play space

dumped out potting soil.  I took out the rock to border the
area and give some textual interest.  The mat is an $8 rubber
backed runner (from the Boy Scout Rummage Sale Fundraiser) that I am using for a play surface.  There was a broken window here and although I have picked up all the glass I could find I still wanted some extra protection for bare feet, the favorite footwear  choice for play here.  The back corner has a cobblestone effect using the rounded glaciated stones found in this area.  I had to buy the lattice screen, my major purchase.

The back screen is decorated with found objects and $.25 items from neighborhood garage sales.  Hopefully it will be a hideaway spot for imaginative play.  The kitchen/planting spot is all garage sale stuff (Episcopalian sale, see previous blog) with the exception of the big plastic bowl for the sand box (sitting in the cast off chair).

I am pleased with my efforts, we are spending lots of time outside,  doing lots of digging and ant watching.  I am constantly reminded that the most precious commodity is time.  The time invested in thinking it through and making it happen, and the time to share in the play, imagination and dreams.  Our mortality is expressed in time, it is the extract or juice of or our lives.  How we use it is important and irreplaceable.

Reclained and garage sale objects

Pretend Kitchen/Potting Table