Birthday Loot

I really like having my birthday in June.  In childhood, it often meant final exams on my birthday, but even then I appreciated the fact that it was six months from Christmas - the other time of the year I got presents.  A six month spread seemed like a good thing then.  Now I just like that I can count on fairly nice weather for my birthday.

I got a pretty sweet lineup of gifts this year.  Garlic scapes and the first tiny zucchini of the year.  Last year the only gift I wanted was a full weekend of my husband's help on a project.  We got the rocket stove built over that weekend.  I liked the gift-project idea a lot, so the only thing I asked for this year was this project:

Why, yes.  How observant of you!  The mailbox does swivel.

This is our new hand tool depot at the entrance of our main garden bed.  Out of all the materials that went into this project, only the concrete and the paint were bought new.  The huge mailbox was a craigslist score, with a busted hinge that my husband repaired.  The post we pulled out of a dumpster a couple years back, and the hardware to make the whole mailbox swivel was lying around the work table in the garage.  All told, our costs came to about $25.  I think the mailbox-for-garden-hand-tools idea was first published in an old Rodale book a few decades back.  Just goes to show that good ideas stand the test of time.  I had fun with the colors, as you can see.  I'm not terribly creative or talented as far as visual arts go, but I do like color.  I guess painting the bee hives earlier this year got me on some sort of paint kick.  It seems with the mailbox I was thinking Mediterranean.  Or something.  I love seeing the bright colors in the garden; it makes me happy. Now I'd like to tear out the hideous wallpaper in both of our bathrooms and splash some riotous colors around those rooms.  Alas, calmer heads will probably prevail on that front.

Having storage for my tools right in the garden itself will not only clear up clutter in the shed, but it will shave several minutes off my gardening routine on a daily basis.  I am all about making the task of food production easier and less time-intensive.  Invariably I end up making several trips to and from the shed to retrieve and put away tools as I need them and finish with them.  I could use a few extra minutes every day, couldn't you?

Even though the hand tool depot was my only requested gift, I also got a breakfast of waffles topped with our own black raspberries, plus the large garden hod I've been coveting for the last few years.  Pretty sweet!  My husband definitely knows my tastes.  Thanks, honey!