Treehouse, birdfeeder, doghouse

Luke just referred to it as a treehouse. Then accidentally called it a birdhouse. Ran into Ed the compost gaurdian again and he showed me the compost heap on the grounds of an abandoned school. The "Indian mound" they call it which I don't understand (ooh hallow, sacrosanct, edgy). In conversation, Ed pointed to the trees on the street and said they were planted by him; that a philanthropist had bought the trees and hired him and some friends to plant them. They broke up the cement themselves which is cool. They are fruit trees which will take 10 years to bloom. Exciting. Ed then helped me get 30 windows for free off of a guy on craigslist. They come in sizes ranging from 3x3 3x2, 2x1, 1x3 ft so if you need any please call. I placed one on the front of the greenhouse, square in the triangular part leading up to the peak which is at an acute angle. Hip folks in their 50s gave me the thumbs up on Sunday. An old man asked me if I was building a dog house.

Paradoxes:

I want to show people that this is easy, but it is not easy.

Success of an atractive garden means that I will attract not only bees and birds but home buyers, and renters as well. If landlords can get more, they inevitably will. So am I hurting the community by making the garden? I think about this often.

And gentrifying is derrogatory word for people moving into an area that connotes an imposition of class hierarchy. It means moving in and raising prices of other things like food, beer, and whatever other commodities people need. My greenhouse is meant to bring down the price of food. At least in theory. Which is principally against gentrification. Whether people like the hip 50s couple will begin demanding homes in the area immediately I don't know. Whether they choose to gentrify is up to them. Keeping things section 8 protected for the inhabitants is only fair. It's not right to move someone from their home.

I've been looking for corrugated metal and have been unable to find any, except for warped stuff in scrap heaps or folded in dumpsters and tacked on buildings. Warshing my teeth the other day I looked out my window and saw the fence between my house and my neighbors was made of metal and that there were left over pieces rusting away. I wanted to ask about it but Mucha told me that she had been taken to a nursing home. I tried to get her name by asking a similarly aged old lady on the street. With some difficulty she told me the owner's name was "mc something". I told her she was in a nursing home and she said that she wished she could be in a nursing home too, and not knowing how to answer that I carried that thought while building. I'm basically at the point where I'm trying to fill all the gaps in the structure with either wood or windows. It's kind of like mosaic building.

Question to the readers: is that legit to lift sheets of metal from the grounds of a condemned property when the owner is unknown and in a nursing home?

I recently started taking gardening classes on Monday nights with growpittsburgh. (www.growpittsburgh.org)

Broccoli is growing in the starter soil.

check back soon for photos.

Ben