A Rusty Pump Housing Clamp, a Tracker Wheel Rim and You Have Magic :-)

by Angela Herremans

A few years ago when Mum was still with us Dad and I use to have someone come in once a week so that Dad and I could have a few hours of downtime from looking after Mum. In those times Dad and I use to love going to the local tip to see what could be found :-) we use to have a lot of fun before it was all baned :-/
In one of our many trips out we found a waterpump housing that the local silver mines throw away :-) I loved the shape of them as it looks like an urn :-)
Our next find was 3 old rusty trackter wheel rims and they are huge :-) and that gave way to a new project for me :-)

a rusty pump housing clamp a tracker wheel rim and you have magic, container gardening, gardening, repurposing upcycling

As you can see the pump housings don't have holes for bolts they did have a bright blue clamp on them when we found them but as they are not part of this project I did not think to take a photo of them :-/ sorry but you will get to see them once they have been used in the project that I do have for them :-)

I did not want to spend hours of grinding away the rust on both the pump housing and the old wheel rims and so Dad came up with the idea to put the wheel on the new urn and mark out the holes that were needed to be drilled to matchup with he wheel rims bolt holes :-)

Well what he thought was going to be a quick job soon turned into almost 2 hours Od drilling and sharpening the drill bits :-) he spent the time drilling the holes and I spent the time sharpening the bits when he switched drill bits :-) we work well as a team :-)

Once we matched new holes to old holes I then had to go and buy some nuts and bolts so I could bolt the two pieces together :-) well that was a pretty expensive purchase but I needed something that was not going to rust and split :-) so I bought stainless steel nuts and bolts and that's was an ouch :-) but so worth the outcome :-)

I bought the nuts and bolts home and was working out how I was going to do this when Dad pulled out the pressure pump and his old work tools (he use to be a diesel mechanic ) :-) and between us me holding the spanner to hold the bolts while Dad used is drill to bolt down the nuts :-) yep team work, it works every time :-) once we had it bolted together that's when we had the fun trying to move it to its new home :-) umm we both forgot how heavy it was going to be once we had it bolted together :-) so we then unbolted it all :-) moved both parts down to the front of the house in front of the front porch :-) and moved the tools too and then we set about re-bolting it all back together again :-) Mum came out to find out what the noise was all about :-)

Now we had my new player pot back together yet again :-) we then slid it onto the new base that it would live it's time out :-)

As you can see with the plants in place it looks great :-) I planted two plants one is a succulent of what it is I have no idea :-) I liked it and that too was found at the tip :-) from the garden dumping section :-) quite a number of my plants have come from the tip :-) and I also planted a climbing geranium vine which was given to me :-) I am not sure if it's the red one or the purple one I will have to wait and see when it finally does flower :-)

On the left is my water bowl with the white down pipe from the roof leading to it :-) the water tank on the roof has a very slow leak so I put the bowl there and with a solar pump I have a little bubbling brook sound which has a nice soothing effect :-) on the right is the southern cross windmill that we bought Mum for her birthday.

All the coloured cement work that you can see is what I did with my old cement mixer :-) before it was converted to a overgrown flower pot last week :-) I did e cement work 3 years ago took all day to do :-) as I was doing it on my own at first until Dad spotted what I was doing and then he started to help :-) in between the coloured cement

I used some old foot path cement blocks that I found at the tip :-) there was so much of it from when the councle was working on our Main Street in town :-) giving it a new fresh look and so I picked some up and when the boys so me doing this the dropped the next half load off for me :-) best thing about living in a small country town :-)

Under the windmill is my old bowling ball I put it there until I can buy a special long drill bit so I can drill a hole through where my thumb goes in the ball so I can then put it into the water bowl as part of the water feature :-) the red of my ball will then sparkle under the water :-)

As you can. See there is my old cement mixer off to the right :-) and more of the old street foot path leading to the back of the yard behind it :-) I still have to do the coloured cement work around them like the very front :-) but I will get there yet :-)

Of to the left next to the water bowl is a very large green concret frog that was given to Dad he loves to collect green frogs :-) he just loves them so where ever you look you will find a frog of some sort :-) and yep there are tadpoles and frogs in my water features :-) I have three so far around the yard :-)

I planted local grasses in the front so that it covers up the old porch walls which is built of Large pebbles :-/ it's not a very good job so I have been wanting to cover them up for a long time :-)

I have also planted some smaller grasses and also a daylille too along with lemon grass as its good to ward off mosquitoes. One day I will get the rest of the front porch done too :-) oh and the large grey rock came from a friends property :-) I liked the look of the colour and the white vaines that run through it :-)

Well until my next project from recycled bits have fun and I hope you like what I have done so far :-)

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3 comments

Heather Tracy on Oct 08, 2015
I like the way you think, Angela! Great way to bring more rusty goodness into the garden.

1 Reply
- Angela Herremans on Oct 09, 2015
  Lol thank you Heather :-) Dad and I had a lot of fun making that one :-) I can't wait to free up my other one so I can then make it too :-)
  
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Angela Herremans on Oct 21, 2015
Thank you Becky :-)

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