John arranged a fun party Saturday night to celebrate the (near) completion of our new garage. I'm enthusiastic about it, not only because we can get our woodshop out of the guest bedroom and the boxes out of my office, but because it is a de facto "public space". There is a strong tradition on the ranch of entertaining outdoors, and of dropping by on outdoor "living rooms" for spontaneous gatherings. So far we have had only private space that is not visible from the road; now that we have a visible, accessible, public space some distance from the house, things are going to be kind of different. It will also provide a link to our outdoor fireplace, which is woefully underused. This will be particularly nice for Bill since he really enjoys having his buddies around.
Our gatherings are always open-invitation and it's interesting to see how that has evolved. I knew some neighbors would be friendly and other neighbors would not be. What I didn't expect would be that the loudmouth gun-toting redneck crowd would embrace us enthusiastically, while the three gay couples just down the road would refuse to associate with us at all. Can't say I lose any sleep over it though.
I would post photos but the building is still wrapped in Tyvek and looks really ugly. When the board and bat siding is applied and oiled, it will be beautiful. I'll post some then!
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