Early Morning Picture of my Wedding Gazebo

s219 · Nov 22, 2015

Looks even better now with some age, as the roof shingles have grayed up nicely. Beautiful work Eddie.

blackdog2086 · Nov 23, 2015

And I thought my roof was PITA to build. Beautiful job.

EddieWalker · Nov 23, 2015

arrow said:
I love those cement stanchions in the water Eddie. Up here we have an event in down town Providence called "Water Fire". Basically it is metal grates on stands that allow a fire to be built just above the water line. They are fed by people in a boat loading up the firewood as the evening continues. There is always some avante gard music playing through the speakers and although there are thousands witnessing the spectacle, it is very quiet. It seems to have a very soothing and calming effect on people. Even though you are using yours as planters, it sort of reminded me of that.

Thank you. My land used to be part of Camp Fannin, a World War II Army base that was open form 1942 to 1945. They installed 20 concrete culverts in two rows next to each other under one of my roads that lead to Rifle Range #4, a 300 yard range that is on my land. Or I should say, the shooting positions are there along where the targets used to be. Mostly it's just a dirt hill that's very straight, and flat on top for 600 fee in either direction with a road down the middle. Anyway, they put those culverts in the road, and they were allowing water to drain away from my pond and down to the highway. I removed them and diverted the path the rain water went to get more water in the pond every time it rains.

The culverts where an ugly mess that I couldn't think of anything to do with them. While on a cruise, I saw some fancy painted garbage cans in Mexico and thought maybe I could use them for something like that. Paint them up and set them around the dam with flowers in them as planters. That changed to using tile, then putting them at the edge of the water, and then it hit me, the water level was down several feet and they would look pretty cool around the peninsula surrounding the gazebo. It still planned on tiling them, but after awhile, the rough look of the old concrete won out.

We tried planting roses. They did great the first year and where beautiful for my wedding there. Then back in the Spring, a beaver started to eat them. He would eat part of a plant, then the entire plant would disappear. We kill beavers at the pond all the time, but this one was too smart for us. We never did get him, and he succeeded in eating every single rose. We learned that beavers will eat anything woody. Now we have marigolds in there and they looked great all summer, but now seem to be dying off.

To place the culverts, I drilled a large hole into each side and ran a chain through the middle, then used my front bucket to pick them up and carry them into position.