Long time Colehaus Cats readers know we have a big fountain in our backyard. It was Dad’s dream back in 2002 and ever since, it’s been instrumental in providing water and shelter for multiple kinds of wildlife as well as a big stress reliever (mostly) for us humans.
Coming from living on a near quarter acre rental house surrounded with grass, we decided early on our own backyard would have zero grass. Mom could dabble in her wildest perennial and evergreen garden dreams and Dad would have wide walkways and a fountain dominating half the space.
7 years ago, Mom was thinking of how to create balance and dreamed up an idea for an arbor, a size-appropriate arbor to the big fountain, meaning not a dinky little arbor out of an Amazon-delivered box.
And then life happened. Layoffs and worry and lots of food bank trips. Mom went back to work, working 2 jobs at once for a short while. Through it all, the arbor dream was pushed down countless times and Mom kept squirreling away every penny not needed for living. Literally, pennies.
Slowly, pennies, nickels, and dimes build into dollars. This year, the arbor became real.
We found an honest, very hard working, creative outdoor woodworker on the NextDoor app and worked with him all last month to make Mom’s arbor a reality.
We stained the wood black, no painting, and the contractor installed water diversion pipe and dry wells to keep everything as maintenance free as possible going forward. Other than a few little tweaks here and there, it’s done. Mom can’t stop looking at it. Now, maybe, all her work and days spent separating gravel from dirt makes sense. And just in time for the garden to start blooming.
Project #1 is nearly complete. Project #2, the downed bird feeder, is slowly being figured out, Project #3 is in process (more gravel/dirt separation), and the moving Dad downstairs project is still in the planning phase for this coming fall.
Many thanks to our contractor, to the Colehaus cats who not so patiently waited for Mom to get out of the dirt and come inside for snuggles and hugs, and to you for visiting here, for your generosity and kind words of encouragement, advice, and simple check-in notes saying Hi. We appreciate every one of you. Thanks for visiting today!
Okay Quint, let’s make up for some of those lost hugs.
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A Colehaus Cats flashback:
2024 – No post
2023 – Is it Friday?
2022 – No post
2021 – Why Not Wednesday
2020 – No post
2019 – No post
2018 – No post
2017 – Like Mother, Like Daughter
2016 – No post
2015 – Ruby Tuesday
2014 – Pia and the Abyss
2013 – No post
2012 – No post
The arbor is beautiful and well worth all the scrimping and saving. The flowers, shrubs and walkway are so beautiful too. You should be proud of what you have achieved.
Wow, that’s fantastic! Lovely!