a shelf

A significant event happened today. In my garage. My small garage. The very small garage I sorta co-share with the top floor housemates. The garage where I need space left to park a car. Where I store parts for said car (and 2 others, nay, 3 others). Car parts strewn about. Well, not strewn. But not tidy either. The lots of car parts, spares, supplies, fluids, etc.

Today, as I tidied up, shuttled empties into the recycling stream, aggregated some camping gear, hung more items from the rafters—do not think I was performing The Spring Cleaning, no, no—I had a curious thought. A thought that, as I thought it, I thought (weird, eh, a thought atop a thought?) that this is a first. This is the first time I formally thought this. It occurred to me that I've not got a designated, allocated spot for astronomy stuff! And I need one. Badly.

I have a lot of stuff in the garage, fighting for space, that is regularly required for astronomy. There's a lot of astrogear here. Tripods, mount, Astronomy Box β, dew shield, garden cart (fortunately folded in half), dew heaters. Some of these doodads are bulky and/or large (e.g. in the both category: the adjustable height astronomy chair). Every time I unload from an astroevent, I just put stuff wherever there was a spot or space or slot... Which sometimes proves challenging leading up to the next event when I can't remember where I put it!

And serendipitously, there, before me, was half a shelf, empty. Empty space. Enough space for a few things. Ah, to get things off the floor. A shelf for something other than car parts. Enough space for a mount, a box, a Telrad, a box of LED lights. Not a bearing, spark plugs, wiring harness, stove-pipped tyres, brake pads. Winds of change.

Today, in my garage, I made space on a shelf for astronomy gear.