What do you do with an idea?

That’s the question one of the children’s books on our kids’ bookshelf poses. It’s a cute book with an adorable little egg-like protagonist. Well, if you’re an antsy gardener just coming off a gardening hiatus and you’ve literally planted every single square inch of your garden with fall seeds and perennials, you build stuff. Lots of stuff.

This past week I decided I needed to tinker in the garden. And I may or may not have constructed not one, but two massive bamboo lattice trellises. And forced my poor husband to build me two composting bays out of reclaimed pallets. 

Did I say reclaimed? It’s a funny word. Yes, I claimed them, salvaged them, which included me creepily cruising behind a shopping center, trying to awkwardly lift a few VERY heavy pallets. I’ve got the bruises and scrapes to prove it. Here are some fun facts I learned in the process:

• Fun fact #1: a Toyota Highlander CANNOT fit more than one pallet in the trunk with the middle row of seats still up.
• Fun fact #2: the Toyota Highlander has an alarm bell THAT WILL NOT TURN OFF unless every single door (including the back hatch) is securely shut.
• Fun fact #3: carting around a screaming infant and a curious toddler while procuring said pallet is about as fun as gouging your eyes out with a spoon.

Take my word for it, leave the kids at home with your poor husband, remove the car seats, lay those seats down, and DRIVE like Sandra Bullock in Speed to your nearest strip mall during that crucial overlapping nap window.

I also “reclaimed” some invasive bamboo from our neighborhood common areas for the trellises. With just a pruning saw and some zip ties, I made these babies:

Impressive right? Well, I didn’t start this blog to lie to you good people of the internet. No, no. Here’s the mess that sat in our garage for 3 days while I “worked on it”. 

Then I started getting ideas. And you should know by now that those are dangerous. Here are the conversations between Jonah and I the past week:

Me: “Hey Jonah, look at these AMAZING new trellises I BUILT. WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS! What if we put the trellis on the deck? We could create our own living shade/privacy wall! It would be amazing!”

Jonah: “Remember two years ago when you tried to trellis squash plants to the deck? And they got super tangled and half of them rotted?”

Me: “Okay, true. But we could put planters on the deck this time and just trellis up something light weight like beans or peas. Or a fruit! Oh a fruiting/flowering thing!”

Jonah: “Okay…..”

Me: “I can see you don’t like this idea at all. So how about this… we could put them out near our garden boxes!”

Jonah: “Didn’t you just have me buy electrical conduit to make arches BETWEEN the boxes? Isn’t that kind of a lot going on for one box? Plus, these bamboo structures would be really top-heavy the way you have them oriented.”

Me: [increasingly exasperated because gosh darnit THESE TRELLISES ARE GOING SOMEWHERE!] OKAY. Here’s what we’ll do. We’re going to ADD A STRIP to the garden. I’m going to plant something vine-y on them, TBD. But there will likely be new blueberry bushes involved in this plan. Did I mention I GOT ALL OF THIS FO’ FREE WITH MY AMAZING FRUGAL SKILLS???? (including new blueberry cuttings from a neighbor that are currently rooting out?)

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED????

No, no he was not. But by hook or by crook, this is happening.

In all seriousness, Jonah has been very supportive and is the tether that keeps me from sailing away into the sky like a sad balloon lost at some kid’s 5th birthday party. I mean just look at the blood, sweat, and tears he was willing to shed on my behalf to help make my composting dreams come true:

So what do you do with an idea? You dream some dreams, get creative, and make it happen! More updates on the expansion to come!