Mrs Fixer came home from a craft store a couple of weeks ago with these cut, circular spinny thingy's meant for yard art and says "I saved $5 because it came disassembled". There was no axle of any kind so we had no idea of how the make it spin.
Being a car guy I decided a treaded rod axle with lock nuts and clothes line turnbuckle contraption would work. So we went to Home Depot and spent her $5 and some.
This was the result.
It was one of those "well it worked on paper" ideas. But when the wind blew it just swung back and forth like an upside down popsicle. No spinny at all. Oh it twirled well when I physically spun it. But it remained motionless except for the back and forth during a thunderstorm that left tree branches scattered across the yard.
Mrs Fixer came home with a replacement yesterday. That one was on a string with a swivel at the top. "BING!!" Idea......
WalMart and the fishing section for deep water swivels resulted in some J-chain, key rings and catfish rig swivels.
An hour later we had devised something that works with even the slighest breeze. Oh, I'll invest in some ball bearing swivels after the July 4th weekend but for now it's working very well.
In the background is an old sink we planted in a fence post sticking out of the concrete slab. A bit of soil and some perinials later and it looks nice. Next to the spinny thingy is a porch swing style bird feeder. She puts the leftover parrot and cockatiel food in it each evening rather than toss it in the trash.
The concrete slab had a shed over it that fell down so she calls it her patio now. We have some plans that are slowly in motion while the weather is hot.
And in the background of the second from top photo is a privacy fence we are contemplating whether to paint a giant Dr Pepper logo on or maybe a mountain scene, or maybe just let it be a wooden wall.....
The shed that fell over....
Was hauled away for a nice bon fire somewhere in the countryside.
Currently
To the left of the slab is the carpet that used to cover the shed floor. It now covers uneven, rock strewn ground until we import something to level it off and landscape it. To the right is leftover 3/4" plywood for other projects. That with some cinder blocks and 2x4's. A few bicks and a pile of cut up wood for the burn barrel not shown.
The black bucket covers the electical wiring from the shed. It had a 240 outlet and several 110 outlets. I'll plant a post with a weather proof outlet box at some point.
Right of the black bucket is where a section of fence post will be planted for the downstream end of a yankee clothes line that used to be attached to the shed. A yankee clothes line is a line on pully's. Years ago they were clothes lines between buildings in apartment complexes. You hang clothes from point A and push the line away to make room for the next item and so on.
Great for fresh smelling bed sheets.
To the far right of the patio picture is a small garden we did a few years ago. There was a ground up tree stump we dug up and mixed the wood chips with nearby dirt and leaves 18" deep. That will be expanded over to the concrete slab at some point.
It's a work in progress that we spend about an hour on each evening when it doesn't feel like walking into an oven when we walk out of the back door.
