Step 1 - Live in a Center City Philadelphia apartment and have a back yard. This step is not as easy as it seems. It requires luck, mostly, plus a willingness to deal with stray garbage and strangers staring at you from the adjacent parking lots.
Step 2 - Spend an hour or two in Lowe's, Home Depot, or some other large home improvement warehouse. Do not have an idea when you go in. Have a plan when you emerge.
Step 3 - Have a fiancée (girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, or roommate) who is both good with their hands and creative.
Step 4 - Remove shirt, put on gloves, and labor in the sun.
Step 5 - Leave extra time for puppy that "helps" by jumping on your shovel and digging.
Step 6 - Drink water.
Step 7 - Open beer, thereby negating the replenishing effects of Step 6, but feel better despite it.
Step 8 - Plant flowers so that you stay busy while the subject of Step 3 crafts a fountain out of tubing, a copper pipe, an old spigot, a pump, and some joiner the guy at the home improvement store suggested.
Step 9 - Feel deflated when the pump does not start. Feel relieved and elated when you realize the extension cord was plugged into an outlet that does not work, and water begins to trickle pleasantly from the spigot
Step 10 - Enjoy your Center City oasis and think that, when you move, you are taking the entire thing with you so that the next tenants have to figure it all out themselves.
I love it! What a creative fiance to put together the whole thing. :) So glad that you got your little oasis in the city...not an easy thing to come by for sure.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jewels. Having my little oasis is great...and it means the dogs have a huge dog bowl that I rarely have to refill (though I doubt they'll be outside much today). My fiancé is thinking about crafting a collection barrel too.
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