Trees die in the yard over the years. Sometimes the death comes with a crash after a big wind or lightning. The ol’ husband, chain saw in hand, typically rushes out to the tree carcass. I think it is his Paul Bunyan bloodline or something. An actual tree-fall encourages his quick actions, and before you know it, there is only a pile of firewood and a tree stump left where the “majestic front yard mighty oak” once grew.
After Mimi’s good ol’ husband did his duty recently, Mimi only saw the stump in the front yard. She looked past the leaf and branch debris now raked neatly. She looked past the firewood piles. She only saw that stump. If that husband had Bunyan’s genome, Mimi had Gramma’s arts and crafts gene. No artistic wife could fathom abandoning a stump like the one in Mimi’s front yard.
Her creative juices began flowing immediately as she contemplated that stump. Her artistic fairy began fluttering and planting an idea in her fertile brain. “The stump was in the front yard, right near the sidewalk and street. Why not,” she thought, “turn this tree remnant into a little house, a fairy house or gnome house? Yes, a gnome tree stump house?” Mimi did have to work too hard to convince a reluctant husband to work with her to build this very special gnome dwelling because it would be fun.
Perhaps you have noticed that there aren’t many lumber yards providing building materials for gnome dwellings. The city knows nothing about such buildings, so at least there were no building codes to worry about. And you really can forget plumbing and electricity. Mimi and recruited husband compiled a list of building materials and scoured a variety of lumber, hardware, and houseware stores near and far. They visited Lowe’s. They were at Walgreen’s—that’s where they got the band-aids for a few smashed fingers. They hit the dollar store and the Ace hardware. They scavenged wood scraps and pounced on used “construction” materials.
All materials were assembled by the stump and construction began, and without any building permit. The building slowly emerged as the pieces were added to the stump, item by item. Once the basic little house was completed, the couple added little decorating accoutrements.
Neighbors and visitors pass by the “Gnome Home” today and take note of a shepherd’s crook leaning against the little building. A scale-size lantern stands “ready” for light in the evening. Windows of wood frame a living area within the stump. Miniature pots of clay hold actual flowers. Yes, Mimi and husband have turned a left-over stump into a neighborhood source of pride. It all happened in just two weeks from dead tree to little house on the front lawn.