A Busy Box

The rope is for towing it.

About five years ago, I had to have a container fabricated to safely ship my eBay purchased hardtop (for the MX5) from Melbourne.

I googled a box-maker, and after sending him the measurements, he knocked up a very sturdy box.

When I say “sturdy”, I mean it was so heavy that it took two strong men to lift it, which created all manner of complications and delays. At various stages of shipping, it had to wait for a special truck with one of those inbuilt mini crane thingies or a hydraulic hoist attached. Ipec trucks are operated by one person.

Anyway, it arrived, and it had kept the precious (and vulnerable) hardtop safe.

Box (with hardtop inside) arrives.

After the top was sprayed the same hue as the MX5, it looked pretty good, and kept the car a lot more secure than the original.

Of course, I disposed of the MX5 some years ago, but the box lingered.

It was always a problem to store, so I dragged it into the backyard shed, where it did sterling duty as a storage for tools and things for a few years. It was narrow enough, stood on its side, to work as a container for heavy stuff, and left enough room for the ute.

Hardtop fitted.

With the onset of Spring, we always seem to get the urge to plant stuff. The local rag was giving away a whole lot of free seed as a promotion, so we found ourselves in possession of a range of vegetable seed varieties, many of which were new to me.

The problem with attempts to grow stuff at our place is always the dogs.

They dig stuff up, play weird games on any open area of soil, and eat anything that grows. This means that any garden has to be thoroughly dog proof.

I hit on the idea of using the box, but the problem of its weight remained. Then I thought about ways of making it mobile, so it could be moved around to take advantage of prevailing conditions.

Casters (available at half price from Masters because it’s going out of business) were the answer. They’re attached using coach screws. I put a rope on one end to make moving it by one person feasible, and will attach a roll of chicken wire across the top to discourage the dogs.

We’ll plant herbs and vegies. 

Mobile gardens are a thing.