Job done!

I have to share my absolute delight in crossing off an item that has been on my wish list for oh, around five years now! Why it has taken this long, I have no idea. Except to say, that there is always something more pressing to take care of. You might find it rather strange that I can get excited about a kitchen sink, but yep, that’s exactly it.

By now you also know that I have a ‘slight’ addiction to Pinterest. Sad, I know. But oh, there are so many ideas there! Which is where item 326 on the wish list was discovered. If you grow your own veggies, you’ll know how dirty root vegetables can be when you lift them out of the ground. Sure, you give them a good rub, but they still have grit and the odd grub clinging to their sides. So the answer is to give them a quick wash before bringing them into the kitchen. Some folks may be ok with giving them a clean in the laundry sink, but I’m under strict instructions from the maintenance man, aka the quality control inspector and risk management guru, to always leave as much dirt outside the house! Our water treatment plant is a mysterious system relying on bacteria to break down the household waste matter. Excess dirt simply sinks to the bottom of the tank and doesn’t do the system any favours.

All this time I’ve jiggled bunches of carrots, beetroot, parsnips and all sorts of veggies under a hose or tap, usually making a soggy mess at my feet. I knew what I needed. A kitchen sink outside beside the garden beds was my answer. So I set about looking for an old disused sink. I may have mentioned it to a few friends, and before I knew it, I was given one by a mate in Melbourne who was renovating his kitchen. The sink then stood on it’s draining edge at the corner of the carport for oh, maybe a year and a half. There were still too many other jobs to see to.

Finally, when my Dad came to visit last month, I said to Frans that if there was one thing I’d like them to do as a male bonding project, then it was to build me a fabulous structure with the sink. It was to be my very own Taj Mahal, an expression of their love to me. I wanted something that I could say ‘my Dad made that for me’. So they did. Let’s just say, that the project took five years, three hours and a trip to town to buy a bit of piping. I’m now the proud owner of an outdoor vegetable wash station. The designers and builders even plumbed it so the wastewater flows into the garden bed beside it. No more soggy feet.

The completed project. Well... almost. Paving to be done.

There was one criterion that Frans was firm on. He had to be able to mow the grass under and around it. I had to concede that this was a good idea. A shelf at the bottom would only create a hiding place for slithering creatures. My Dad did say that it wasn’t quite finished. It requires a base of paved bricks on the ground below. I’m hoping it won’t take another half a decade to lay the bricks down. There’s only one more thing… I really need another sink in a different part of the garden. I guess I should enjoy the one I have. But it’s not going to stop me from adding it to my list again!