Spitball Army

Finally, early this past December, I had a new roof placed on my bungalow.  The roofers came in early in the morning, removed five layers of shingles, cleaned off the roofing debris, laid down plywood decking, and re-shingled by the middle of the next day.  Quite a job, and it looks so much better now.  Not to mention that I don’t wig out every time there is a strong rain, trying to guess from where the next leak is going to spring.

There was a large attic vent perched right up on the crest of the roof.  It dated back many decades, perhaps even back to the ’20s or ’30s (the house was built in 1925).  There is only one other house with such a vent on its roof on my block.  Now it is the sole house with that artifact, as I had the roofing company take it down (it was not functioning).

In the picture below, you can see it sitting up there in its rusty glory.  I have always referred to it as “the spaceship,” because it looks less like something that belongs on top of the house, and more like something that touched down in the middle of the night.

The spaceship, up close and personal:

The roofers were crawling all over my house, like ants, speaking the language of my paternal ancestors.  They very carefully extracted the spaceship from the house and set it upon a large piece of plywood on the backyard lawn.  You can also tell from this picture what December looks like in central Alabama – it’s t-shirt weather two weeks after Thanksgiving (but it couldn’t have anything to do with global warming)!

The spaceship sat on the lawn for months after that.  I would pick it up and move it to a different place every weekend, so that the grass wouldn’t die underneath it.  My initial thought was to create some kind of planter with it, or alter it into some kind of retro yard art for the backyard.  But I just couldn’t find the right placement or come up with the right approach that would leave it looking like something other than a piece of discarded hardware that should probably have been taken to the dump.  I tried positioning it in the circular flower bed in the patio.  No.  Then I moved it to the long planting bed that borders the back of my yard, and almost immediately some chipmunks took up residence underneath it.  That was no good – I’ve been trying to eliminate the chipmonkeys from my property for almost a year now, so no encouragement was needed.  Then I had another idea.

The gas meter on the front of my house is one of the ugliest things I have ever seen.  Why not use the spaceship as a yard ornament to distract from the unsightliness of that meter?  Or, better yet, use the spaceship to block the meter from view.  About a year ago, I had purchased some Rustoleum spray paint to refurbish some “musical frogs” that Mom had given me.  They are now quite handsome, standing in the flowerbeds in their gold metallic finery, keeping the day lilies and coreopsis entertained.  I decided to give the spaceship the same treatment.  Once shiny and new, to a fashion, it was a cinch to decide what to plant inside of it.  I chose pampas grass.  I found a “miniature” variety of pampas grass at Hanna’s Garden Shop down Highway 280 on the outskirts of Birmingham (they have everything).

You can see the result of my aerosol painting – and planting – below, with views from the side (allowing a peek at the gas meter) and from the front (the street and sidewalk view).

The spaceship landed in my front yard almost two months ago now.  So far, there have been no audible compaints from the neighbors.  Some days now, late in the afternoon from the comfort of my porch, I watch the Crestwoodians as they practice their post-work ritual of strolling up and down the street and sidewalk, pushing baby buggies, walking dogs or getting a bit of exercise.  With regularity, their eyes catch the sight of a golden orb resting in the corner of my front yard, and their heads rotate to the left or right as they cruise by.  Are they trying to figure out what it is?  Are they reminded of Plan 9 from Outer Space or The Day the Earth Stood Still?  Are they wondering where my gas meter has disappeared to?  Maybe they are thinking to remind themselves to send out an alert to the city beautification board as soon as they get home.  Or to notify the department of works – the one that posts notices demanding the elimination of garbage and weeds from residential lots.  There is no telling, and they are certainly not telling me.  Most importantly, my immediate next-door neighbors – the ones who have to look at the spaceship every time they walk onto their front porch or into their front yard – claim to really like it.  That’s all the affirmation I need.