Getting into the Shop

I've found it harder to get into the shop lately. This is not a question of time, motivation, or family demands. No, it is literally getting harder to get into the shop.

Take a look at this picture: the walkway started at a meager 3 feet wide (give or take), but in the middle of the path there are now two toolboxes sitting atop a cardboard box filled with mechanics tools. To the right—sitting within a foot of my bench and blocking part of the tool shelves—are three pieces of plywood intended to become the roof ring for our modern ger. Atop that is a baby gate (!) in it's tattered cardboard box. There's also the stool I scavenged, standing comfortably in the remaining two feet of walkway. Around the corner, unseen by you, is a quarter bale of straw (!!) the remains of a porch banister, three ancient bikes, a broken window, a weight bench piled with cardboard boxes, an old dresser, a box full of 2" by 3" aluminum chunks (with really sharp edges), three grocery bags filled with books, left-handed women's golf clubs (neither of us golfs), a quarter bale of cedar shingles, four broken 1970's modern kitchen chairs, a decrepit step ladder too rickety to use, and more.

Whenever I wend my way to the bench, I'm forced into a careful dance, orchestrated to avoid bruising my hip on a bike handle, spilling a pile of boxes, stubbing my toe on a toolbox, loosing my balance and falling into the toolshelves, or knocking tools from atop the stool. I'm world class, precise, almost dancerly in my negotiations. A lucky soul tiptoeing through a minefield.

It's time to get a dumpster.