Formed in 2009, the Archive Team (not to be confused with the archive.org Archive-It Team) is a rogue archivist collective dedicated to saving copies of rapidly dying or deleted websites for the sake of history and digital heritage. The group is 100% composed of volunteers and interested parties, and has expanded into a large amount of related projects for saving online and digital history.
Last week we had a big messy tree cut down.
We had no idea that cutting down the tree would lead to such a big project and a fun change.
June 16 our tree man took down the big tree, but we asked him to leave the schefflera tree.
The schefflera tree (I planted a little 3" plant 20 years ago) didn't look so good without the big tree so on January 17 Steve borrowed a chain saw and took it down himself.
Once I saw that space with just soil, I remembered photos I had saved, but never really dreamed of doing anything like them at our house.
June 18 I laid out a border and planted a few flowers.
The next few days we were busy digging up rocks and tossing them into the fire pit, weeding the area and laying down weed fabric before we spread 9 bags of pea gravel.
On June 22, 7 days after the tree came down, we were finished laying 12 more bags of pea gravel and I set out chairs, but there was just too much blue.
I have always liked vintage chairs like this one I found on the side of the road (it finally fell apart), but a favorite shop downtown, B on Main, sells reproduction versions.
I called the shop and they brought the chairs out the back door to me - surprisingly, I passed on a red chair and chose yellow and aqua.
Monday afternoon, this little corner of the garden was ready for me to "decorate".
The bicycle got a basket of lavender, the frame was brought down from the attic and I made a wire heart with air plants, but it blends in with the fence.
I want to find a different table, but this will do for now.
While we were working, we kept saying, "we're too old to be doing this", but we are proud of ourselves for tackling the project on our own.
The pea gravel section is 10' x 12' and that's prime real estate in our limited amount of space.
After the messy tree, we can't get over how clean the area stays.
For now there are petunias sitting in the fire pit, but with no tree hanging over the pit, we will be out there many nights enjoying a fire.
The jungle was colorful, but we are so happy to have another nice place to sit in the garden.
