Special Delivery

Now that my (almost daily) delivery drivers can't pull up right in front of the porch, they have to get out of the truck and trudge up my stone path, rain or shine. Since I have this Amazon monkey on my back, I'm starting to feel sorry for the poor folks who are forced to support my habit.

To make their lives a little easier (and to give me something fun to build), I worked up a design for a package mailbox that they could reach right from the truck.

 

Because it will be out in the weather I decided to make it out of construction lumber, specifically rough-sawn 1x4s available from my local lumberyard. 

I made the boards into tongue-and-groove, complete with a little bead detail. Tongue-and-groove boards support each other and allow for expansion and contraction. Important for wood that will live outside.

Screws are in the center of each board, so the board can easily expand and contract, and I used spacers to make sure they all had breathing room.

These planks can swell and shrink all they want without buckling.

Diagonal bracing is notched into the post and held in place with what  boatbuilders used to call "trunnels" (tree nails) - wooden pegs, round(ish) for most of their length to be driven into a drilled hole, and left square on the outer end to bite into the wood like the head of a nail.

The pegs are dry and the post is green, so when the green wood dries out and shrinks, it will clamp down on the peg and never let go. Old-timers built chairs this way; inserting dry stretchers into holes drilled in green parts.  The older the chair, the tighter the grip on the inserted peg.

The mail lady, who doesn't have to bring my packages all the way up to my house, but always has, is named Rosa.  So the rose is kind of in her honor. 

Planting Day

It finally stopped raining, and as the farmers say, I could finally get in the field. It's been raining all week but this ground is so well-drained that what was a swamp yesterday was dry today.  At least on the surface.  Digging was easy and it's a good thing, because I planted 31 plants today!

They don't look like much now, but most of these native plants are supposed to grow to 6 - 8 feet.

This was yesterday, when my future patio became a swimming pool

Rocks to the left of me...

Rocks to the right.

I had spread fescue grass seed  on the front part of the yard before the rain.  Hopefully it didn't all get washed out into the driveway. After I got the plants in and the new stepping stones laid, I seeded right up to the house. 

Obviously I still have erosion, but hopefully once the grass and plants get established, the situation will improve.

Couple more to plant tomorrow, and then we water and wait!