on Saturday brought out the table and worked on filling the planters that go around the deck…
four of the six were filled with purple and white petunias and alyssum…
the two in the centre have pansies, lobelia and alyssum…
it was fun and I enjoyed the time…
there are still three on the north side that need something… after all these years I still haven’t found just the right plants that live in shade and are happy in a planter…
Sunday, spent the entire day in the garden… it was warm and sunny…
set out all the chair cushions and even brought out the decorative ones…
then, most of the fish came outside… a few just wouldn’t be caught, lol… apparently a project for another day…
tea, reading, and bird watching took up a good part of the day… I am loving the sound portion of my Merlin App… it has come in especially helpful for me to identify the many sparrows that come and go…
White-Crowned, White-Throated, Harris’s, Song, and Chipping Sparrows have all been around for the last week or so…
checked out the fence with the little person and his daddy on one side, as I contemplate the style of the new fence that is in the works, and had tea and snacks with the ones on the other side… they enjoy sitting by the pond and the sound of the running water…
ate all my meals on the deck, breakfast and lunch on the back, and supper on the upper…
phone calls, emails, in-person visits, and text messages came throughout the day…
last week, after aquasize, lunch, and a nap, I got to work in the garden…
first up, all the planter boxes under the deck came out and went into their spots around the deck… will need to add some compost and additional soil in them before too long so they will be ready for plants…
after a break to do some reading, lol, it was on to raking up some of the leaves… wore my new Christmas gardening gloves… not only are they made from recycled material, they are purple and fit nicely…
filled a yardwaste bag with the dead cedar and elm leaves… looks better but will still need a bit of work…
spent time in the garden because the sun was shining… and apparently that might not be the case for the next week…
enjoyed my book, even though I wore my jacket and had a blanket over my legs… mornings are always warmer on the deck than the weather reports, as the sun beats down on it…
later in the day I removed the tarp from the chairs and small tables on the back deck, folded it up and put it away in the garage…
I swept off the deck, placed two chairs on it, and moved the two others to the hot tub area…
on March 12, this is how the deck table looked covered in snow and with the very dilapidated old umbrella… and then on the 2nd of April when the new umbrella was installed…
Sunday, the chairs made it onto the deck… and Monday, the table got washed and the chairs set around it…
was making my morning tea the other day, when I looked outside and noticed a delivery truck slowing down and stopping in front of the neighbours’ house…
kept watching, to see what they were getting, lol… then he pulled out a pallet with four chairs on it…
they were for me, but there were vehicles in front of the house so they had to park that little bit further…
the driver got them down and brought them up the driveway, but felt he couldn’t carry them along the path between the driveway and house because it wasn’t shovelled to the ground… so he left them there…
I put my coat on, went out, cut away the plastic holding them to the pallet, and carried them in, two at a time… then I brought in the pallet… at which point my grandson came up the basement stairs to see what was going on, lol…
I am very happy to get them because I’ve been looking for replacements since the fall for the 13 year old ones on the deck which have given up the ghost… all the ones I had seen couldn’t be delivered so I was very happy when I found these on sale the other day… and there was no delivery fee;-)…
I think I will make a planter with the pallet… bonus…
shovelled a path across the upper deck on Sunday morning… that way I was able to adjust the solar motion sensor… the squirrels had tipped it down on their trips back and forth…
it has been many, many, weeks since the deck had been shovelled… and in that time, the sun has frozen a number of layers so it was a bit difficult to get it cleared…
later in the afternoon I noticed that a lot of the remaining snow where I shovelled had melted away… so I made another pass…
this time I left a bit of snow to melt there…
my photos suggest that it looked like this in March of 2021… hard to believe, lol…
today, three jobs that have been on the list for ages, got done, thanks to Nathan the Handyperson, and my grandson;-)…
first, the front door sweep got reset and the edging tightened to close up any open spots… happy this took place before the really cold weather… it was first worked on about a year ago and the piece came off early in the spring…
next, the deck got levelled…
it has been sinking more and more over the summer and when they got the underside open, there was the tiniest piece of rotten wood holding it up😳…
we’ve lived here for just over forty-nine years and the deck was probably built at least thirty-five years ago… the top has been replaced once and is still in excellent condition… there was one piece of the frame that had to be replaced, but the rest was in great shape…
the steps to the side garden were removed for the work and then reattached and feel much sturdier now…
and the rail was redesigned, is much more stable, and matches the rail on the other side…
I am so thrilled it has been fixed…
finally, the rotten section on the bathtub pond ledge has been repaired…