A Little Gem of an Idea

Over the last year or so as my 10.5 year old car's visit to the local mechanic .7 miles away got more and more frequent, I've seen this brightly colored box on someone's fence as I drove by.  This box looks to be filled with books.  This isn't on my normal dog walking route and since I'm usually picked up from the mechanics when dropping the car off, I haven't had the pleasure of walking back (which is a nice flat walk but minus any mature trees) to inspect this in person but I was able to catch a website from the front of it:  http://www.littlefreelibrary.org/.  After perusing the website, I was even more intrigued to see this box and if I lived on a busier road, probably interested in using their plans to build one of my own. 

One cool spring morning, I decided to take a book from the box that I was going to give to the local library and walk the dog down that way.  I thought it would be about the same distance as our usual walk and figured the old guy could make it (I misjudged but he lived).  This box was well built, sturdy and adorable!

The front lifts up and you just leave your book on one of the shelves.  I wish I had taken a picture of it from the side because as you can see from this photo, the person added a picket fence, some faux ground cover to the right side of it.  It's attached to a 2x4 that's stuck in the ground on their side of the fence. 

I posted this picture afterwards on Facebook where my sister-in-law submitted the photo and the article idea for her employer's blog.  Lo and behold, a week later my photo appeared along with information on the people that installed it.  I'm not sure how they got that info but if stalking is legit in the journalistic world, I need to get in that field a.s.a.p.

If you are wondering what book I donated (as you can see from the above photo, pickings were a little slim on the available options when it came to borrowing anything):

Everyone needs to experience some James Herriot!  I'm not sure if hardcovers can really fit in here but I plan on leaving more paperbacks (non-Fifty Shades of Grey paperbacks...but that would be funny to leave that in there) in the future.  This is such a cute idea and one of the little things that is never publicized when people from the large university town nearby talk down about our city but which us 'lowly' residents know and which makes this place a bit more special.  Now if only we could crack down on the number of medical marijuana dispensaries necessary for a city with a population of under 30,000.....