The Newnan Mass-A-Cree

Remember Arlo Guthrie's hilarious classic song "Alice's Restuarant"? He refers to the Alice's Restaurant mass-a-cree. Well, this is the tale of the Newnan Mass-a cree.

I'm usually a peaceful sort of gal. But, this week I massacred a bunch of wasps and boxwood. The boxwood was put in by the house's builder, no doubt because it was the cheapest thing he could buy by the boxcar load.

This boxwood was horribly overgrown when we bought the house four years ago. But, I was working hideous hours and never had time to prune it. So, it became even more overgrown.

Boxwood grows BIG. Why on earth it is ever chosen for foundation plants, I will never understand.

So, one afternoon last week, I went out to prune the boxwood. Only problem was that the local wasps had selected our boxwood for their summer vacation home. Hmmm....I'm really afraid of wasps.

So, I grabbed a can of wasp spray and one of my mother's old canes. I'd whack the boxwood, wasps would fly out, and I'd spray them. I went up and down the whole front of the house, whacking and spraying. After a few hours, most of the wasps seemed to be gone.

I grabbed my teeny tiny wheelbarrow and lopping shears. After cutting one tenth of the first shrub away, my wheelbarrow was full. What was I thinking? So, I just started tossing them on the lawn.

Two hours later, the boxwoods were all cut down to stumps. I almost felt sorry for the few wasps who returned home to find their home all chopped down.

Now the boxwood have been hauled to an out of the way spot, awaiting the chipper.

The boxwood will look pretty ugly for a few weeks, then they'll sprout back out. By fall we'll decide if we want to completely remove them and replace them with something more interesting, or if we'll try to keep them pruned to a decent size.

The boxwood in front of the porch had grown almost as tall as the porch railing. Cutting them back revealed yet another of the builder's shortcuts...no lattice to cover the front of the opening under the porch.

Ebay is Not for Neat-nicks

Have you ever run across something you no longer need and thought to yourself..."I could sell that on eBay". Many people make lots of money on eBay (I'm not one of them!).

Some of you may know that I've been selling stuff on eBay. I thought it would be a nice little way to supplement my retirement income. What I did not know is that it would TAKE OVER MY LIFE!

I don't have items listed all the time, but when I do they can be found at:

http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/sandance

These days most of the items I list are for a friend. This is the collection of his wife, who was my dear friend...mostly Disney and Coca-Cola collectibles.

This week I had 24 items listed. 12 of them sold. Most of these items were larger than the standard little USPS Priority Mail boxes. Some of them had rather odd dimensions and required digging deep for boxes...trying many to see if they would work.

I forage for shipping supplies wherever I can, because I HATE to have to buy shipping supplies. The post office will supply Priority Mail shipping boxes, but they don't come in all the sizes I need. Which means I usually have a lot of box and packing material clutter. As it happens, I have just received a nice donation of shipping supplies, including a gigantic bag of foam peanuts...which takes up as much space as a recliner!

I used to have a cute little office. A desk, bookshelves, a nice closet with all my weaving yarns....ah....how well I remember the good old pre-eBay days!


This is what my nice office looks like this evening, after a marathon eBay packing session:


That red table cloth is what I use as a backdrop for many of my photos of eBay-bound items.
The floor model Ott Lite lets me take photos without flash, minimizing glare. The boxes under the table (yes, there IS a table under all that stuff) are full of items that need to be listed on eBay...someday...

I used to have a dining room. For a few short months it was my weaving and summer sewing room. (The real sewing room is next to the attic and really hot in the summer.) Now the poor former dining room is the eBay packing material and eBay item staging facility. It's where I keep the items I'm selling for a friend...while they're waiting to be listed on eBay.

This is what my formerly cute little room now looks like. If you look really hard you can find the BIG 48" LeClerc loom and a Canadian Production spinning wheel with a big 30" drive wheel!



I'm taking a two week break from eBay and am going to try to clean up this mess!


The moral of the story is....before you decide to embark on an eBay voyage, ask yourself if you can live with the mess that's bound to sneak on board.

Lunacy in the Garden

I suffered a nasty sunburn while gardening last weekend, and have since been hiding indoors. Today I was back in the garden to see what surprises it had in store for me.





This silly flamingo basket holder has been with me for quite a few years. This year it migrated from the patio to the flower border! It holds a Wave Petunia. I hope the frame will eventually be covered in pink flowers. The idea tickles my funnybone!











The oakleaf hydrangea (the tiny flower buds were shown in a previous post) now has big clusters of flower buds. Soon there will be white flowers. The white flowers will gradually turn to pink and will remain on the shrub all summer.















Anyone for a picnic? The picnic table in the woods is now almost completely hidden by foliage.
















And lastly, the reason for the title of this post....
Luna-cy! After working in the garden all afternoon, I found this lovely creature on a window shutter on my front porch. I rarely see the Luna Moth, and it is always a treat.

The photo quality isn't so good. It was nearly dark, and I had to take the photo with a flash.