Gasping Garden

My garden gasped through August, revived with four days of rain and slightly lower temperatures in September, which gave a second spring.

Now it's gasping again during the Indian summer with temperatures in the 90°s F. (35-38° C.), dropping only slightly at night. The warm weather doesn’t fool me—I know it’s time to prepare for winter, so the roof got it’s coat of water-proofing (the back-breaking inconvenience of a flat roof), and then out came the paint cans and brushes. While my husband takes care of repairs, the shutters, doors, gates, and railings have been getting my attention. 


I like the freshly painted shutters--no dust. That will last for about a week.

Have you noticed that people on Pinterest have whole boards about gates? Which made me appreciate my no-nonsense garden gates made of pallet wood and freshly painted. 



Besides being kind of cute, they serve to keep our farm dogs off the patios and out of the raised flower beds.
A few new objets trouvés (sounds nice in English, fancy way of saying ‘found junk’) have been added to my kitchen terrace garden. I discovered a bicycle chain and sprocket in a field. I resisted the urge to paint the sprocket (round rusty metal object on left, below).

                                   I like the sculptural effect of the chain.

On the right, an old bird cage got painted along with the shutters. Good plant protection from the cats. One of my cats just walks into, onto, and over potted plants--even prickly succulents. 

For this project, I cut wires on the side of the cage to be able to open it up and insert pots.

           Of course, I must point out that my bidet (which began here) is looking better than ever. My dentist stopped by for a (friendly) visit and when he saw it, he decided to put an old sink and bathtub in his garden to plant. As I've mentioned before here, Tunisians love to accumulate and now he's pleased that he kept them.

On the left you can see a rusty piece of wrought iron railing that showed up out of nowhere. I’ve got to get a grip on the junk around here!