When we decided to relocate to the country, Amy started talking about a gazebo. A yard, she said, had to have room for one. Our yard has room for a gazebo subdivision but one will do and we spent four months looking for one we liked before settling on an oblong, tea-house design structure from Yoder’s Amish Woodcrafters just outside Hillsville.

With gazebo ordered, the next big decision was where to put it on a yard where flat spaces don’t exist. We finally decided on a space halfway down the hill of our front yard but the delivery crew still needed to add blocks and spacers to level the beast when they delivered it last week, just before three days of rain moved into the area.

The weekend brought sun (along with humidity) but a cooling breeze filtered through the gazebo as we enjoyed an afternoon sitting in the swing, listening to the birds and watching an occasional car drive by on the road below.

It was, we decided, worth the effort.