Meredith Mansfield, Author

Yes, I know it’s Tuesday, not Wednesday, when I usually post. I got a month behind, so I figure I owe a few extra posts.

Okay, it’s not progress on MAGE STORM. Not yet.

However, the lower patio has been found! (Well, technically, it was never lost. Just so overgrown it was barely possible to get to it.)

Here’s today’s picture.

Yeah, it needs to be swept again–or maybe hosed down. Sadie’ll love that. She adores playing in the hose.

I’m still going to have to do a bit of pruning. This is the entrance to the patio right now.

Just a little tight.

No table right now. I don’t think the old table is very functional right now. (And yes, that’s another area I’m going to have to clean up–just in a different way.)

I have to figure out how to repair the table or do something else. I have an old wrought iron table base that would have to be cleaned up–and a new top found. But that could work and might be easier to do, especially since I know a company that would pick it up, sand blast it, paint it, and deliver it back.

There’s a story behind this patio. And since what I’m trying to get to ultimately is get back to telling stories, maybe telling this one will help with that.

Years ago–never mind how many–I bought the original bench as a Father’s Day gift. Dad was retired by then and spending much of his time outside, so I thought an extra place to sit was a great idea. So did Dad. He immediately went out and bought the chairs and table–at a different store. They don’t match–never did–but only Mom and I ever seemed to care about that.

But few things were ever quite that uncomplicated with Dad, whose motto was, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.” He decided that, since the chairs and bench were heavy, they might sink into the mud if we got too much rain. (Not entirely impossible. It’s adobe clay soil, which does get muddy, and might as well be concrete once it dries out.) Therefore, we had to build a patio–I helped him with that–before we put the new furniture out.

And no, that’s not the original bench I bought for Dad. A couple of years after he died, I found the old bench knocked over against the bricks that form the edge of the perennial bed behind it. Neighborhood kids, probably, but I’ll never know. Cast iron will break and it had–irreparably. So I bought a new bench because this really is a very nice, shady place to sit on a warm day.

It had only gotten overgrown during the last couple of years I was taking care of Mom when I just didn’t have the time or energy to keep up . . . well, most of the yard. Yeah, Mom’s been gone five years, now. So it’s about time I resurrected this patio.

Oh, and why do I call it the lower patio? Because beyond those bushes and the crepe myrtle tree and up a few steps is the upper patio (which clearly needs to be swept again).