Webz

We wore ourselves out on Thursday morning. First, we emptied the garden shed. The lawnmower, rototiller, and wheel barrows were easy. Then came all the tools like rakes, shovels, hoes, and other long-handled things. The tomato stakes, both metal and wooden, and the collection of various and sundry poles and sticks. Hundreds of little seedling pots and trays in every condition. Odds and ends. And garden chemicals (way-too-old herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, etc., from the previous owner).

These outdoor spider webs are tame compared to what I cleaned out of the garden shed on Thursday.

When the shed was empty, I swept the floor and walls. Then I used the shop-vac to clean the walls, ceilings, and the floor of the hundreds of spider webs, spider eggs, spider bodies, and actual live spiders. Yuck. We boxed and bagged a lot of junk for the dump, including all those old chemicals. I originally kept them when we first moved here thinking they might come in handy, but I've never used them; they're just too old.

This is probably the third time I've emptied the shed in fourteen years. The first time, that first year, was the worst. The shed was an unorganized repository for stuff that hadn't been used in years and I could hardly get inside, it was so crammed with junk. And the rotted door was patched with plywood. After a few months we had a new, lockable, door installed. As with all storage space, it quickly got re-filled with junk and less and less organized, so periodic clean-outs are more than necessary.

Now we start the process of putting it back together. I'm going to the hardware store to look for those things that I can hang rakes and shovels and other long-handled tools on so they're no longer leaning up against the wall (and falling over every time I take a tool out). Of course, I have no photos of the process, but I'll try to remember to take some of the result.