Ashley Hackshaw, Author at Ashley Hackshaw / Lil Blue Boo

The Pea Gravel Patio

August 7, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

Yesterday Brett and I installed this pea gravel patio:

I broke every single rule for putting down pea gravel but I’ve never like following the rules anyways. We didn’t put down weed barrier (more trouble than it’s worth) and I didn’t even outline the area completely until after the gravel was being dumped. I didn’t even calculate how much gravel I needed…basically just ordered a whole truck load because when you get it straight from a quarry it doesn’t really matter. Half a load is almost the same as a full load, because you are paying for the truck regardless.

The truck driver we’ve used the past few times can dump the gravel with so much precision it doesn’t even really count as “installing” a patio. He did all the work:

Since we put in a driveway and parking area to the back of the house it was easy to get the entire truck around to the front:

We used a metal border for now and one day might add stone, but the metal border was salvaged from a demolition and it was free so that met our budget. Now we just have to get the grass to grow thick and lush right up to it:

The table we got at a yardsale for just a few dollars and Brett rebuilt the benches last night and stained them so they are still in the garage drying:

It was raining last night but that didn’t stop Boo from trying to roast a marshmallow. I was able to get the fire going long enough to melt enough marshmallow for one s’more:

It would have been nice to have had the patio earlier in the summer but we had to take out a really big tree first that was at risk of falling and making a big mess. Now I just need some globe lights to string across the yard and maybe Brett will build me a really long farm table.

Stay tuned for the depot project that we are working on through August…there will be pea gravel used for that too!

More House on Hospital Hill posts here!

In the Knothole of a Tree

August 5, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

Is it weird that I pick up dead bugs? The guy in the parking lot thought so the other day as I almost tripped him to save this dead butterfly:

And then Brett found this in his truck yesterday, a dead dragonfly that I’d carefully wrapped up after finding him under a bench:

But seriously….the wings! Only about 2.5 inches long and such detail. I want to cut little tiny pieces of glass to fit all those little stained-glass windows.

I pick up little trinkets and treasures wherever I go. Feathers, shells, prickly things I can’t identify:

Treasures found and gifted:

Sometimes I find things in my path, like in the knothole of a tree, that I swear Boo Radley could have put there himself.

Speaking of To Kill a Mockingbird, I have Go Set a Watchman sitting here on a table but I just can’t bring myself to open it. I don’t know if I’ll ever read it.

We watched the TKAM movie a few months back and it was just as wonderful as I remembered it. I think one of the most beautiful parts of the TKAM movie…the beginning credits where the hands open the box of treasures and the child’s hand coloring:

And just because I like to make lists, here’s an inventory of things Jem and Scout found in the tree:

1. Chewing gum: Two pieces of chewing gum, wrappers removed. Fresh. Wrigley’s Double-Mint.

2. Pennies: 2 Indian head pennies dated 1906 and 1900. Found in a purple velvet ring box covered in shiny foil gum wrappers. They would be worth about $50 today.

“I don’t know, Scout. But these are important to somebody…”
“How’s that, Jem…?”
“Well, Indian-heads — well, they come from the Indians.
They’re real strong magic, they make you have good luck.
Not like fried chicken when you’re not lookin’ for it,
but things like long life ‘n’ good health, ‘n’ passin’ six-weeks test…
these are real valuable to somebody. I’m gonna put ’em in my trunk.” (Chapter 4)

3. String: A ball of grey twine. I’ve imagined it as the hardware store kind, used to tie up packages and newspapers.

4. Dolls: Two dolls whittled out of soap. The boy with unruly hair hanging down, wearing shorts. The girl with bangs, wearing a crude dress.

5. Gum: An entire pack this time. No more information other than that.

6. A medal: An old tarnished medal that would have been given out to spelling bee winners in Maycomb County elementary school. Atticus couldn’t recall the name of anyone he knew who had ever won one of those contests. Neither can I now that I think about it.

7. Pocketwatch: An old, broken pocket watch on a chain. The credits showed an old Ingersoll Yankee pocket watch. The minute and hour hand missing but “penciled” hands marking the time 1:53. (the Yankee watch was first manufactured in 1896 and was so successful that Ingersoll had to open up new plants just to keep up with production.)

8. Aluminum Knife: Found with the pocket watch.

And then there were no more gifts…the hole in the tree was filled up with cement.

A Week of Writing Prompts – Week 4

August 3, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

(Daily writing prompts are posted Monday through Friday at 7am on Facebook. This is the weekly roundup with a few excerpts from my personal journal. The goal is to write for at least 10 minutes without stopping, regardless of what ends up on the paper. Feel free to share writing in the comment section. Write on!)

Note: I can’t believe it’s already been 4 weeks already! I’m trying to find a way to get these emailed each week but for right now they’ll just be sent on Fridays with the weekly letter and posted here. And still daily on Facebook. Would love to read some of what you are writing. Feel free to copy and paste in the comment section.

Prompt 16: Today’s writing prompt is from my friend poet Maya Stein’s book: Writing Prompts for Ordinary People (90-Days). Pick one of the three prompts listed:

CORNERED
KNOW-IT-ALL
SALTWATER

From my journal:
“I used to buy this saltwater taffy at the Hammock shops when I was younger. They looked like mini-watermelons or had the image of a strawberry on them depending on the flavor. The images went all the way through the piece of taffy meaning if you bit into them they cross section still had the same perfect image on it. They must have been made in the same way as those sliced FIMO clay necklaces that were also so popular at the time. To make them long strips of color were laid along side each other and into a raw-spaghetti-type cylinder. They were stretched out until the roll was 1/10 the size and sliced into cross sections like a cucumber to reveal the design.”

Prompt 17: Write about the photo below. Describe everything you see: angles, colors, shapes, etc. Find new descriptive words that might not obvious.

A note about this prompt: Sometimes I push myself to describe things in a photo and I save the descriptions for later use. I file them away in Scriveners under headings like: seasons, houses, people. That way when I am struggling to describe something I always have a trove of them to pull from.

From my journal:
”The door was left wide open as if someone left in a hurry. The shuffle-worn floor planks sagged in the middle and the entire room seemed to bulge outward as if an invisible force pushed against them. A reverse shadow was on the wall where maybe a piece of furniture once sat. Brittle paint followed the grain of the wood. I could write out a poem on the ruled paper of the decade-stained walls.”

Prompt 18: Nursery Rhyme.
From my journal:
Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I. I loved that nursery rhyme growing up. I knew so many. The woman who lived in the shoe, the man that ate no fat, the boy that broke his crown, the pig who went to market. I’m slacking in the parent-child nursery rhyme category, I’m not sure that Sienna knows even 50% of what I used to.

Prompt 19: Collect information today in your journal in list form: quotes, overhead conversations, news headlines, song titles etc.

From my journal:
“Do you know what the adversary is?”
“I was president of the 4-H club.”
Exercise. Ex Er Cise. Eggs are sides. For bacon. Bacon.

Prompt 20: Who was your best friend at age 5? Age 10? Age 15? Age 20? (More ideas with a similar prompt at Day 28 of the Lil Journal Project)
Natalie at age 5. Alison and Kerry at age 10. I remember so much about Kerry’s house. We watched Back to the Future when it first came out on VHS. We always played in the woodsy circle across from her house. She had a Rock Tumbler and I wanted one so bad. I still do! Her mother’s house had this awesome loft above the living room with a ladder going up to it.

More posts on writing here: