I mentioned earlier that I am a gardener. And I mention in my bio and description that there is sometimes some adventure in our lives. I also like garden objects. Unique garden art. So how does all that tie in together?
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| Back yard now |
When we moved in, there was nothing in the yard except 8 oak trees, 3 or 4 dogwood trees, and the foundation plantings at the front of the house.
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| The potted plants belong to the previous owner. |
Well, something HAD to be done about that! My shovel has been working overtime and I'll get to that, but today I wanted to share with you the observatory. Yes, we have an observatory. You know, for viewing stars and planets! We have eventual plans of a pretty base and garden, but for now it sits here:
Now how did it get here, you might ask. As I mentioned in our house search (read about that HERE), we own some rental houses that are 3 miles away. And the observatory sat in an empty lot there before we bought our house.
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| MacGyver has nothing on my man. |
To get it to the empty lot Mr. Menace (aka my husband, Dennis the) took his car ramps, that you'd use to change your oil or something, and turned them upside down and used them as a sled.
He then pulled it with his Grand Marquis across the lawn.
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| Easy peasy |
The trip to our new house was going to be a bit more difficult since it involves state roads and traffic and stop lights and power lines.
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| If at first you don't succeed... |
The first attempt to load it onto a boat trailer was this <--> close to working! But as we all know, that doesn't count when loading an observatory. It was actually on the trailer for a moment, but it was off center and the trailer moved and it rolled off onto the ground.
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| Lets try the opposite. |
For the second attempt, he decided he would try to load the trailer onto the observatory by removing one of the tires and pulling it up with a winch.
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| Winch tied to a tree. |
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| Maneuvering trailer onto observatory. |
After strapping them together, it was time to get them both flipped.
Using the winch, which was still attached to the tree, to keep it from falling and crashing to the ground, and the truck to pull it over, it was soon right side up. For traveling that is.
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| Mr. Menace at work. |
The process so far had taken 2 different weekends and at this point he was dog tired and it was 7 pm. So we left it sitting here until the next weekend when we came back and he hooked it up to the truck for the journey home.
Acting as a warning to everyone else on the road, I followed him in my car as we started out on the 3 mile trek home.
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| Here he comes. |
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| There he goes. |
We got quite a few looks at the first stop light. It's not everyday you see an observatory I guess!
For some reason, I was surprised when we made a pit stop. As were the store owners and customers.
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| Fill 'er up! |
We made it home without incident. There were lots of stares and a few understanding waves from neighbors that know my Mr. Menace.
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| Two miles from home! |
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| Turning onto our street. |
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| Turning into our yard. |
Hopefully we can start the base that we have planned for it soon. Then the star gazing can commence!Labels: Adventure, Gardening
