Deck Complete

The deck is done. It's 16' x16' and sturdy as a rock.

Greg is a master at engineering, which made me very grateful because those boards were a pain in the neck. The quality of timber has diminished substantially in the past 50 years. Trees are cut young nowadays, warping and twisting at will.

We had to clamp the entire deck to force the boards back to straightness.

I stained it with Valspar's November Gray. I think it will weather nicely.

But it's done. Wiring is in. Water pipes are in. All that's left is the greenhouse itself.

It would be nice if we could get the greenhouse finished this week, but we have several appointments that will take up a lot of time. We'll get it started though.

I'm very proud of what we accomplished, especially at our age. It's been awful on our joints and backs, but we did only what we could, when we could, and stuck with it.

We've been taking Fridays and Saturdays off to go garage sale-ing. Lately, we've had great luck with good finds.

Greg scored big with a giant tote of very expensive screws and bolts. And God knows why, but he also bought a 3 foot piece of a railroad rail. He says he wants to make an anvil out of it. 

He already has an anvil. (le sigh)

Both are stupendously heavy!

I've been scoring large planters here and there. I want to repot my citrus trees into bigger pots. I also scored not one, but two portable greenhouses. I  bought myself a small one last year to protect my potted trees, but Greg found a lady who was willing to sell two larger greenhouses at a rock bottom price if I took both. I'll probably sell the smaller one at my garage sale.

Now that I am greenhouse rich, I have plenty of places to keep frost sensitive plants during January and February.

The one thing I've been actively looking for is a small bar sink. I used to see these tossed to the curb regularly, but now, zilch.

Since Greg installed plumbing to my greenhouse, I thought it might be nice to have an actual sink to wash my hands.

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In other news...

Among friends and family, and even the world at large, I'm sensing great change ahead.

Change is scary, but it's also a chance to start over and do better. The world, though, is restless, and angry. 

There's talk that Putin has convinced North Korea to send him troops to fight Ukraine. How Putin has remained in power after so many military blunders is beyond me. I feel sorry for the Russian people. They sacrificed their sons for nothing.

There's a fire smoldering over there and Putin keeps adding kindling.

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We had back-to-back hurricanes hit the US, Helene and Milton. It's had a devastating toll on life and property.

Hurricane season ends on November 30, so we still have a ways to go before we're safe.

A friend asked me to write a post on how to prepare for disasters like this. I'm still really busy, but I'll try to get that up soon.

With all that's happened lately, it couldn't hurt to review your preps if you live in a critical area. 

We still have to deal with tornadoes where we live, but I'm glad we moved away from hurricane country. It's one less hassle.

When we were a few years from retiring, I felt strongly that we needed to move inland. I had a choice of jobs in Dallas or Houston. Even though it was farther away from Greg, I chose Dallas, knowing we could scout the outlying areas more easily for our retirement home.  

In retrospect, it was the right choice.

It can be very difficult to predict the future. All you can do is glean as much information as you can and make a plan from what you can extrapolate.

It's never foolproof, but it's better than swinging in the wind, waiting for someone else to save you.

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