The road home from Florence on Monday afternoon

January 14, 2019 - Monday evening
29 degrees/cloudy/calm winds
Pentoga Road

I'm trying to keep awake while waiting for Sargie to walk in the door. Unfortunately, she won't arrive home for another hour or more.

Monday was a good day of subbing. The math teacher whom I filled in for had great lesson plans which made my job much easier. Of course, having students that were, for the most part, well behaved, helped a lot. 

I spent some of the quiet time today designing next summer's garden. I'm still not certain what, if anything, I'm going to do, but simply put, I'm bored with my garden. It's time for a change.

I'm envisioning building a garden house, something along these lines.

This one's constructed from pallets and Yooper Brother Mark is saving them for me at the plant. In fact, he told me tonight he has almost twenty at the plant that can be picked up at any time. 

I've also thought about building a more conventional garden shed like this one. It too is made from disassembled pallets.

The poly-carbonate panels in the current greenhouse have yellowed and grown brittle. I've discovered that replacing them is almost as costly as the price of the original greenhouse. Besides, it's time for a change.

I'd also like to enlarge the pond and dig it several feet deep in a horseshoe shape with a larger waterfalls at one end. 

The final piece of the new look would be building a wooden bridge across the pond connecting the vegetable side of the garden to the orchard. 

Then my mind goes into overtime and I think about making a mini covered bridge. That lies at the lowest rung on the list of priorities along with building a half-size Dutch windmill and an old fashioned wishing well.

The problem with all the above is that I'd have to tear up a large part of the garden for most of the summer. At least half of the raised beds would be destroyed and rebuilt in other areas. I would mean bare bones gardening this year.

I'll leave bright and early in the morning to teach first grade. I've retrieved the old banjo from the closet, tuned it, and will take it with me. When all else fails in the world of mini munchkins, sing! Nothing gets the little ones attention like a good, old-fashioned, five string banjo played and led in song by an old music teacher.

It's time to end and finish getting ready for tomorrow. I'll be teaching Tuesday, have Wednesday free, then finish the week on Thursday and Friday back in the first grade room.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...