Repurposing

Do you like strawberries? Do you buy strawberries from the local grocery store? Then, you don't know what a strawberry is. Go find some strawberries grown on a farm where you can pick them yourself, and taste one. I guarantee your eyes will roll back in your head in sheer bliss, and you will never be able to put one of those store-bought ones in your mouth again.

 

Strawberries actually grow really well in my little garden, so much so that, this year, I gave them twice as much space as they have had. They are already blossoming away, promising many sweet berries to come.

 

The problem?

These guys:

 

Roly-Polies. Pillbugs. Sow Bugs. Whatever you call them, they love strawberries just as much as I do. What they don't eat, the chipmunks run off with. I can put netting over them to keep the latter out, but the pillbugs were still getting into my raised beds.

 

Meanwhile, the library replaced the old behemoth CD racks with sleeker, way-more-compact cases, and the old racks went on auction. Nobody seemed to want them, and I was staring at them, trying to think of a possible use, when I realized...three feet off the ground...three long tiers about four inches deep...hey!

 

For a whopping $10, I got all six of these. They fasten together back to back, making a half-circle. Can you picture them, covered in strawberry plants? Daddy jokes that I am being awfully nice to raise them up fpr the deer, so they don't have to bend down to eat them, but there is already a fence in the works. And, he was nice enough to load them into the truck in well-over-80-degree temps today, when he should be recovering from a three-day road trip hauling uncut lumber and a jeep.

 

I wasn't allowed to help load, being in 'a delicate condition', so F. and I pulled all the little felt inserts out. I now have approximately nine thousand pieces of what amounts to a commercial grade carpet, about 6"x8". The librarian in me can't just throw those away, and I'm already trying to think of craft ides. Unsuccessfully so far, but I'll come up with something. (Any ideas???)

 

I love getting something cheap and using it for a project that could have cost me a fortune, otherwise! What have you repurposed lately?