Some Assembly Required

Last summer we gave gardening a try, it was not the first time but it was a more serious effort than we've made in the last several years.  We did not have a rototiller at the time so we rented one.  That was an experience and a half but not one we really wanted to repeat.  So this year we bought one.  We did some research, drew upon our experience with garden tillers, and bought one.  We did some research online and made a couple of trips to some stores here in the area to see what they had and then, because nobody had one in their store like what we wanted, we went back online and bought one.  Rather than pay all that shipping, we had it shipped to the local store for free. I was hoping it would come boxed so it would fit in our car and, sure enough, it did.  That meant some assembly was required.  How bad can that be?  I've assembled stuff before, it wouldn't be that bad, right?  So I opened the box and pulled out all the parts.

Yeah, that was something.  All these parts.  Fortunately, some of the major parts were already assembled, like the engine.  That was a good thing.  But what was not assembled was pretty complicated looking.  And there were also several pages of instructions.  That was a very good thing.

Alas, there are instructions, there are bad instructions, there are really bad instructions, and there are instructions that are kinda good.  Really good instructions are rare, especially with something this complex.  These fell into the "kinda good" category, the English and grammar was good, but they still did not have the detail they needed. There were several times that I felt like they had left a step or two out.  And even though there was a parts list, all the parts were all metric and it was, in some respects, pretty foreign to me.  But, like all good puzzles, it had a picture of the finished product on the box. So I got to it.  

After a short time, Brombeere came out and was very helpful.  It went much quicker after that.  

We worked together a while and pretty soon it was lunch time so we went in for lunch.  Then Brombeere had to go so I had to finish on my own; that can be a little scary.  But we were close to done and it went well; soon enough it was done.

And, surprise, surprise, it actually resembled the illustration on the box!  That was encouraging!  So I added all the fluids and fired it up, and it actually started!  I was a little concerned about that but it was good.  So I made some adjustments to the engine settings, pushed it around back, made a few final adjustments to the engine, and got started.

It didn't take me very long at all to decide we'd made a good choice in getting a tiller that was different from the one we rented last year.  It went much better and was much easier to handle.  It was still a bit of work to till the ground and get it to dig and turn the ground like I wanted, but it went much better.  

I didn't do the whole garden space, I only did the one side.  Brombeere had talked about things she wanted to plant and where, so I did enough to do that.  The weather was deteriorating and rain was threatening so I didn't feel like I had a whole lot of time anyway.  But I did enough that I figured that Brombeere would be able to get started, not quite half of our garden space.

The rest will come later.  We do, after all, now have a tiller ready and available whenever we need it.  That's a nice thing.  So we'll be able to put the rest of the garden in once Brombeere decides what she wants to plant and how she wants to arrange it.  It's a work in progress.

A Long Time in the Making ...

On the subject of our garage, in recent years its been more a storage area than a place to park cars.  Early winter a year ago we were able to make some significant progress at getting it cleaned and organized.  Alas, it didn't last a real long time.   

Part of that is because Himbeere acquired a second motorcycle, which, of course, could not live out in the weather, so the trailer had to move out in order for the bike to be in the garage.

We actually had done a pretty good job of keeping the garage clean and clear through the winter, at least as clean as we had been able to get it the previous fall.  Taking the trailer out and putting the second bike in still left the garage feeling pretty roomy and clear up to that point. But then a couple of things happened. We both retired, which involved bringing personal belongings home from our workplaces. It is amazing how much you can accumulate over the course of most of a career working at the same place. We didn't want to leave it all behind so a whole bunch of stuff came home to be sorted and gone through at home. In addition, Himbeere moved out, into his own place, which left us wanting to remodel his bedroom into a guestroom. All that remodeling meant moving stuff out of his old room, both cleaning it and emptying it while we worked on the remodeling. And at the same time, we still wanted to continue the process of cleaning up the garage.  So we worked on the remodeling and sort of cleaned at the garage as the opportunity presented itself.  As is often the case, when you do some cleaning it doesn't stay clean and so after a while, when garage looked like we had lost ground.

But we spent some time out there, cleaning and rearranging and pretty soon it looked much better.

After another trip to the dump and a trip to Goodwill to get rid of more stuff, we were ready to tuck the trailer back into the garage and wait for warmer weather.  Actually, in the grand scheme of things, at this point we were ready to start tackling the shelves.  All the floor space was pretty much cleared at this point, but we still need to go through and do some cleaning and reorganizing on the shelves.  

Unfortunately, at the same time we were trying to get the garage clean we continued living in the house, using the garage.  Within three months, the garage had become a cluttered mess again.

In our effort to conquer the mess in the garage this time we decided to hang the kayaks from the rafters in a better way, that made them easier to get up and down when we wanted to use them.

Schwarzbeere helped us put up the new hangers ...

... and pretty soon both kayaks were hanging and out of the way.

Once again we had beat the mess in the garage back and had it clean again.  There was still a lot of stuff out there, more than we could fit in the space available.  However, it was another step in the right direction.

But again, in just a short time (this time only two months), it was a mess again.

Once again, we got out there and got busy cleaning it up.

And again we got it cleaned up and looking in pretty good shape.  This effort was part of the semi-annual garage shuffle, moving the lawnmower to the back and the snow blower to the front, getting ready for the change in the seasons.

But, now that winter is over and it's time for the next semi-annual garage shuffle, to move the lawnmower to the front and the snow blower to the back, the garage was a mess again.

So Monday morning we were out there again, moving the lawn mower up front and the snow blower to the back, cleaning and rearranging as we went along.

As we worked on shuffling things around it occurred to me: this is the cycle of our lives.  It is so because this is a space we live in and use all the time.  That means the garage will always accumulate clutter which will always need to be cleaned and straightened, just like the rest of the house.

We took the trailer out of the garage several weeks ago because one of the kids needed it to move some furniture.  So in the process of moving the snow blower to the back and the lawnmower up front, we again did a bunch of cleaning and rearranging.

That freed up the space lost while the trailer was out so that we were able to put the trailer back in the garage and keep it out of the weather, where it was getting beat up.

So now the trailer is in, and the lawnmower is up front with the snow blower in the back.  Everything is ready for the summer and the mess that is sure to accumulate by fall when it's time to do the semi-annual shuffle again.  It appears this is a never ending cycle we are bound to live with.