To the trepidation of my wife, @yarnsalad , I joined the local Freecycle list. If you aren't familiar with it, Freecycle is an organization that helps people give stuff away. Free. It's run on Yahoo groups, and the messages pop into your email. I was hoping that maybe someone nearby would be giving away some lawn furniture or porch swings.
And they did! Very first email that came was for porch swings! After some kerfuffle with messages and email, I got an address about 20 miles away. I pottered out there in the #floundertruck, and in front of this little house...were two porch swings!
I have to say, they were pretty crusty. This climate does horrible things to wood. I looked at the swings with a critical eye, wondering if they were worth the effort. I picked one up, and it was pretty light, so I put them both in the truck. I was thinking that if one or another didn't work out, at least they were free...and I can always huck them in the dumpster if not. Believe me, if I don't feel it can be resurrected, it cannot be! I am apt to attempt to restore things that are so far gone that they in fact only act as patterns for a new item...
On the way back home, I stopped at Lowe's and grabbed some paint and some decent quality wood screws. I cheaped out and skipped new chain (though I may go back for that later...dunno).
Well, I haven't taken any pix yet (but I will...and post them) but they are turning out better than I hoped. Total cost so far: Gas $7.50, Lowe's $37. If it stops there, then I get two porch swings for a third the cost of one new one.
I didn't meet the people giving away the swings, but I did go to their website http://themagooroom.org/ which seems to be a shelter for blind cats. I once had a cat that went blind, so this sort of twigs for me. Give it a looksee, and remember that they are cool Freecycle people!
Thursday, July 28
Monday, July 25
Just in case you didn't notice...
...I added a thumbnail bar of recent uploads to my Picasa account. These are all pix from my handy iPhone, until I can afford a new camera that does good macro and has image stabilization for my shaky hands.
Sunday, July 24
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