Posted tagged ‘deck’
May 28, 2016
My little nap seems to have done the trick. I fell asleep right away as the bedroom was still cool, and the outside world was quiet. The only sounds were from the chimes hanging off branches in the backyard and Gracie’s deep breathing. She had joined me for a nap. The two cats stayed downstairs for their naps.
Today is a perfect day. It is in the high 70’s, bright with sun and there’s a breeze to cool the air just a bit. We are 10 or 15 degrees cooler than Boston and a whole cooler than the western part of the state.
The deck is back to normal. All the furniture is in its usual place. Putting out the do-dads is all that’s left. When I say do-dads, I mean the rug, all the candles in the trees and on the tables, the window boxes, the flower pots, the prayer flags and the pictures for the wall. The shelf and the flower pots need to be repainted. I have new prayer flags and a couple of new strings of lights.
Yesterday while I was sitting in my car waiting for my friends, the wind blew, and I could see the pollen almost as dense as fog blowing off the tree. My car is covered in the greenish yellow pine pollen. I hate this season. When it gets hot, you don’t dare open windows as everything will be pollen covered. It’s like the harmattan in Ghana when the blowing wind brought dust from the Sahara, and it covered all the surfaces in my house. Dusting was a lesson in futility. It is the same with the pollen.
I drove my friends to the Logan airport bus because they were leaving for England early last evening. When I got home, the phone rang. It was Tony telling me Clare had left her pocketbook in the car, the pocketbook with the passports and plane tickets. Could I please hurry as the bus would be leaving in about 15 minutes, 10 minutes short of the drive. I drove like a maniac. The slowest I went was 75, and I cursed the car in front of me which kept me to that crawl. I swear G-force acceleration distorted my face. I drove into the lot and there they were, the last people. They smiled and threw their arms up when they saw my car. The driver was just putting the last piece of luggage in the bay. My timing was perfect. I handed them the handbag and Tony asked Clare if that was her bag. I wanted to say something sarcastic like I have 15 others you can choose from, but I figured it wasn’t the right time. Their gratitude was profuse. They immediately gave their luggage to the driver and got on the bus. Gracie and I went much slower on the ride home.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 75MPH, bus, chimes, deck, faster than the speed of light, flower pots, flowers, harmattan, herbs, luggage, nap, passports, pine pollen, quiet, tickets, two trips
Comments: 2 Comments
June 11, 2015
Yesterday was a busy day for me. Gracie and I did a dump run then I did some home chores. One was to attach the umbrella light adapter to the bottom of the umbrella then plug the other end into an outlet. Last year I was clever. I had a hole drilled in the deck for the adaptor to go through then I unbent a wire hanger. The top loop of the hanger was left intact and stayed in the hole on the deck, but the rest of the hanger went into the hole and hung down under my deck. I went and tied the adapter to it, climbed upstairs to the deck and pulled the wire through the hole then attached the adaptor to the umbrella. It was a brilliant idea and well-executed. This year I went to do the same thing. On the first try I got the adaptor tied and through the hole to the ground under the deck. I went to attach it to the umbrella but dropped the wire which immediately fell through the hole. It took me four more tries to get that stupid adaptor end connected. That’s four times under the deck standing on my tiptoes to tie the adaptor, four times up the long staircase and four times on my knees trying to attach the adaptor.
My next job was replacing the storm in the front with the screen. I didn’t do the back door screen, the dog’s door, as I figured nights might still be chilly, and the inside door is kept open. That storm door pane weighed what seemed a ton and it was awkward to move. Going down the cellar stairs was a bit dangerous for me given my penchant for falling. I imagined a fall, shards of glass and a penetrated femoral artery. Luckily all went well.
It was hot yesterday, in the high 70’s. Today is supposed to be the same with some rain later, but there is a cloudy sky and a wonderful breeze. The house is cool.
The Globe this morning had an interesting tidbit of news. The State Police captured one of their most wanted, Keith Truehart. He was found in a hide-out built of wood and sheetrock under a sink in an apartment. It seems no one knew he was there. I’m thinking I’d notice a hide-out under my sink. Anyway, he was wanted for assault and battery on a child, a nine month old baby. From the article I gleaned the baby was his girlfriend’s baby, but this is what I read,”The baby was Truehart’s girlfriend, who lives in the North Main Street apartment where he was captured. His girlfriend is not under arrest at this time.”Whew!
Categories: Musings
Tags: adaptor, amybe rain, assault, baby, Boston Globe, chores, cloudy day, deck, dump, hide-out, newspaper article, not under arrest, screen door, Storm door, Umbrella, Whew!, wire hanger
Comments: 4 Comments
May 7, 2015
We have had such beautiful days, warm days, short-sleeve shirt days. The sun is even so bright it makes me squint. By the afternoon the sun has made its way around the house to the back so I go and sit on the deck to take in the warmth. Gracie stands beside my chair and watches the birds until she gets sleepy and lies down for a nap in the sun.
Yesterday I was sitting at a red light when I noticed a hawk high above me riding the thermals in ever smaller circles. I got lost in the hawk, and it took a honk from the driver behind me to bring me back to the now green light.
I have seen foxes, rabbits, coyotes, wild turkeys, deer, skunks, opossums and the common raccoon around here where I live. Actually it was only one deer which ran across the road in front of my car just down the street from my house. I pulled over to watch until it disappeared near the power lines.
I don’t remember seeing many animals when I was a kid even though we spent a lot of time roaming the woods. I remember snakes the most. They seemed to be everywhere. They were, for the most part, garter snakes. We’d pick them up just to check them out, but we never hurt them and we always let them go. They’d slither so fast when freed they seemed to disappear. I can’t remember the last time I saw a snake around here.
I liked scary when I was a kid. I don’t mean afraid. I never wanted to be afraid. Scary was mostly a product of my imagination when I heard footsteps behind me or that hook scratching the screen. Scary made me giggle a little, a sort of defensive reaction to prove I wasn’t really scared. Once, when I was an adult, my dog Maggie, another boxer, woke me from a sound sleep when she leapt out of bed, stood at the top of the stairs and barked her fiercest bark several times but then she just turned around, jumped back on the bed and went to sleep. I wasn’t as fortunate as it took me a while to calm down enough to go back to sleep. I wasn’t sure what to think about Maggie’s barking. Maybe she had a nightmare was one thought, but I didn’t really think so because she usually just sort of barked in her sleep when she was dreaming. I really believed she heard something, something loud enough to put her on alert. Whatever it was left because of Maggie’s deep, fierce barking. She was my protector, and I was really glad to have her. Gracie has that role now, and she is great at her job.
Categories: Musings
Tags: beautiful day, Coyote, deck, footsteps, fox, hawk, opossums, rabbits, riding the thermals, scary, snakes, sun, the hook, turkeys
Comments: 8 Comments
October 27, 2013
If you looked up fall in the dictionary, they’d be a picture of today. The sun is shining, the sky is a pale blue and the breeze is brisk with a bit of a chill. Fall is in full burst. My front yard is filled with fallen leaves and pine needles. The grass doesn’t needed mowing any more. Yesterday my irrigation system was shut down for the season, and today I’ll clear the water from my back yard hoses. It’s time to close down the deck for the season though I’ll save a place to sit on a sunny day, my big wooden chair. I love fall, but I find it sad when fall begins to move toward winter.
Summer is always exuberant. It is warmth and colors and the sweet smell of flowers wafting through the air. Every morning I’d get the papers and then stop to look at my front garden. I’d lean against the car and marvel at the beauty of the flowers. I always noticed a few empty spots and would get excited at needing to buy new flowers. I can never have enough flowers. I’d finally pull myself away and go into the house, get my coffee and go outside on the deck. It takes me a long time to read the papers when I’m outside. I stop and watch the birds at the feeders and Gracie in the backyard. I listen to the singing. I raise my face to the sun and close my eyes. Summer fills me.
Fall always seems to have a faster pace than summer, and I think of October, nearing its end, as the bridge between fall and winter. Fall has a unique beauty when the leaves turn, and the trees are filled with color, muted color. My garden celebrates the season with fall flowers. The plants I put in last year were in full bloom this fall, and I was surprised as I had forgotten planting them. This year I added three more fall flowers, and they must have been happy to be planted as they bloomed a week or two later. Of all the seasons fall surprises me the most. The days are sometimes as warm as summer while the nights get downright cold. The sunlight slants in an odd direction. Darkness comes earlier and earlier.
My heat comes on in the mornings now. I can hear it as I’m waking up. The days seem to be warm enough to keep the furnace at bay, but I doubt that will last too much longer. Winter is coming.
Categories: Musings
Tags: chill of the day, closing down the deck, coming winter, darkness, deck, fall flowers, fallen leaves and pine needles, flowers, furnace, heat, lovely fall day, newspapers, October, slanting sunlight, summer, warmth and color
Comments: 23 Comments
May 16, 2013
Today is supposed to be warm, maybe even hot. Yesterday Skip, my factotum, was here all day getting the backyard and deck ready for summer. Looks like the timing was perfect. The vegetable garden was weeded, its fence mended, candles hung in the trees, furniture uncovered and cleaned, Gracie’s holes filled, including the one closest to China, backyard ornaments put into the ground and my favorite new addition set up from the heavy pine tree: two stars hung together with five tails extending from them all in white lights. I put them on the timer and last night the stars were beautiful. A few things remain, like planting the veggies and adding flowers and herbs to the pots and getting the shower ready, but that’ll wait until it’s warmer every day. I can’t help it. Seeing the deck ready makes me excited to be out there every day.
When I was a kid, and it was summer, we never stayed in the house, even when it rained. We’d find a leafy tree and stay under it to keep as dry as we could. Most days, though, we’d spend at the playground on the field at the bottom of our street. There were two college students there and at each of the playgrounds in town. They ran all the activities. One summer I painted a tray, and it was the best painting I’d ever done. Every summer I’d make lanyards or bracelets out of gimp. I could do all different knots. The first one I learned was the square knot then the round and then the flat. The round was for the lanyard and the flat was the best for a gimp bracelet. I made pot holders on that square loom with the hooks where you wove the cotton. I think I gave my mother one for every Christmas for years. I played horseshoes, checkers and softball and learned to play chess and tennis. For years I spend the entire day at that playground. The local paper, The Independent, had a playground section once a week,and I got my name in the paper a few times for winning at horseshoes and for being the winning pitcher in softball. Nothing makes a kid happier than to see her name in print.
I out grew the playground and spent summers round the house more. By the time I was a teenager, my friends and I were at the go out at night stage. I was on a drill team and we had drill practice two nights a week, and once every couple of weeks we’d go the drive-in. Some nights we just hung around the way teenagers do. My mother didn’t seem to miss the potholders.
Categories: Musings
Tags: candles, deck, gimp, horseshoes, lanyards, lights, playground, pot holders, summer, tennis
Comments: 14 Comments
February 25, 2013
Today I woke up nearer afternoon than morning. It had been a late night. I watched the Oscars at my friends’ house then came home, checked e-mail and watched a little TV. Before I realized it, the time had slipped away and it was after 3.
Yesterday it poured all day, but last night, as I was going home, the rain had turned to heavy snow and it was slushy and slippery, but right now the day is lovely with blue skies, lots of sun and a bit of warmth. I have feeders to fill, dog food to buy and laundry to do. That’s my agenda for the day. I hope I can manage.
I can see the white flowers of the drooping snowdrops in my garden. They don’t mind snow or cold. They are spring’s first miracle. Other green shoots are just appearing through the soil, but in one part of the front garden, the dafs have grown high. Perhaps yellow buds will be next.
Winter is beginning to weight me down. I am tired of cold and snow. I don’t remember ever before being so anxious for spring. Usually I just hibernate with good books, and I’m fine with that and patient with the weather. Maybe all the rain we’ve had, those days without heat or the heavy snowstorms have pushed me to ache for spring. I want one day when the deck is the perfect spot to be.
I don’t like vacations centered on the beach, even when I’m sick of winter. I want to see things, to eat new food and to hear a language not my own. I like old places, even ancient places. The fun of a new city is wandering and getting lost and finding wonders on the way. Sometimes I take all rights or all lefts. I like to sit in the sun at a table at a sidewalk cafe and drink coffee and watch the world go by. When I shop, I look for the unusual. I take a lot of pictures. I am partial to doors and windows. I always think of the generations of people who looked through those same windows and I wonder what they saw. I walk so much I am exhausted and always fall asleep early.
Today I’ll have no adventures, but I do have some sun and some warmth. I guess that will have to do.
Categories: Musings
Tags: ancient cities, dafs, deck, dog food, old places, sidewalk cafes, snowdrops, sun, sunny day, tired of winter, travel, vacations, warm day, winter
Comments: 30 Comments
October 30, 2012
All is well here. Sandy left a mess of pine needles, leaves and branches but no damage. Even the lights stayed on, a phenomenon in these parts, though they did flicker a bit to give us pause. During the day I went out a couple of times to pick blown covers off the deck and put them back over the furniture. A light rain was falling so I had to be careful walking on the slick leaves covering the deck. The backyard has the most fallen branches. Half of the front lawn has disappeared under a sea of brown pine needles. Sort of pretty in its own way.
It was near the water where Sandy was the most devastating. The ocean was mighty with huge, fierce white-capped waves, and they, combined with Sandy’s wind and the high tide, dragged buildings into the sea and flooded roads. The paper this morning is filled with pictures of beached boats, damaged buildings and fallen trees. For the second day in a row, there is no school.
I went down my friends’ house last night for dinner and games. Mine was the only car on the road. I took the long way around and circled the neighborhood to check it out but saw nothing. Later, as my friends and I were sitting at the table, we heard the rain. The drizzle of the day had given way to a heavy rain. I got soaked just going to and from the houses and the car.
I awoke this morning to sun, but it has gone. The day has darkened, and the sky is filled with clouds. Rain is in the forecast. I’m okay with that as I have nowhere I need to be and nothing I need to do.
Yesterday I battened down the hatches and on the deck took down or put away anything which the wind could carry. The breakable bird feeders were the first taken down. The covered umbrella was leaned against the rail so the wind wouldn’t smash it to the deck. Later, I saw the bird feeders which hang off the trees swaying high back and forth so I went outside and took them down. This morning all of them were hung back on the tree branches.
The one thing I most worried most about was my palm tree. It is tall at 6 feet and too awkward to move so bringing it inside was not a possibility. Yesterday was dark enough to trigger the timer so the palm tree was lit all day and well into the night. Before the storm hit, I got a bungee cord and nailed one end to the deck then wrapped the other end around the thin, metal trunk of the palm tree. I checked the tree several times, and it swayed but never fell. My palm tree has survived a hurricane.
We were lucky yesterday.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Bird feeder, deck, leaves, palm tree, rain, Sandy, storm, Tide, Wind
Comments: 12 Comments
October 18, 2012
In the den, where I spend so much time, is the window to my world. From that window I can see a part of the deck and the backyard. At night the lights on the topiary in the corner of the deck and the lights in the back yard on the bottle tree easily draw my eyes. Both brighten the darkness. During the morning, especially this time of morning, I can see the sun shining through the leaves of the oak tree. In the summer the whole tree seems to sparkle in the light. Now, the lower branches closest to the deck are in shadow. The sun has changed position.
I am a window person. When I travel, I take pictures of windows. Mostly I take pictures from inside looking out and imagine the people who lived there looking out those same windows. In some places, the views have changed over time but in other places the views are exactly the same. I remember the view from the window on the landing in Dickens’ house. I imagined him stopping for just a moment to look out that window as he was going down the stairs, and I was thrilled to think I was standing where Dickens used to stand. Some Inca and I shared the same view from a house in Macchu Picchu. At Versailles I figured the king might have watched from the front window where I stood.
Doors have never interested me. It is the transparency of windows which draws me. I look out and watch the snow fall. I hear and see the rain as it pelts the glass. My garden in the summer is an array of colors, and I can admire it from the front windows. Doors keep the world away. Windows draw us in and sometimes draw us out.
Categories: Musings
Tags: deck, lights, Macchu Picchu, sun, topiary, Versailles, Window
Comments: 22 Comments
July 15, 2012
Here I am a sort of shut-in behind closed doors in the comfort of air conditioning. When I went to get the papers much earlier, I walked outside and gasped from the heat and, even worse, the humidity so I scurried back inside the house. Given the weather, I don’t see much going out today except to the dump later. The larder is full and the animals have food; that’s all we need.
The Hallmark Channel is playing Christmas movies this weekend. I even watched a couple. I find Hallmark movies comforting in a way. There is no violence and you know all of them will end happily. I especially like seeing the snow, the lights and the fireplaces glowing. In the heat of the summer, the idea of winter is appealing; of course, in the winter I long for the heat of summer.
Last night the deck was the best spot to be. The breeze blew, the insects were elsewhere and dinner was delicious. It got me to thinking about when I was a kid. Back then there were no decks, only patios always made of brick. We didn’t have one, but the white house on the corner did. Their patio furniture was ornate and made of black metal. The table and chairs sat under the grape arbor. They grew big purple grapes.
Most of the houses in my neighborhood have back decks. One exception is my neighbors across the street. They have a patio, a brick patio, and they have metal furniture, ornate white metal furniture. They are much older than the rest of us, and they are a bit of a throwback to my parents’ time. She works in the yard and wears a wide- brimmed hat. When they go out with friends, the men sit in the front and the women in the back. They live behind locked doors. The only time I see their front door open to the screen is when they are expecting company. If I go over, I ring the bell, she looks out the window to see who it is and then opens all the locks when I pass muster. I joke with them all the time. They are good-natured about it, but as she says,”They are who they are.”
Categories: Musings
Tags: air-conditioning, Christmas, deck, Garden furniture, Hallmark Channel, heat and humidity, patio
Comments: 18 Comments
July 9, 2012
The morning is a delight. A breeze is blowing, and the air is cool. All my windows are opened for the first time in a few days, and I can feel cool air on my back from the window behind me. All the sounds of my world I can hear through the open windows: the birds, the baby next door and cars going down the street. It’s a wonderful day so far.
Last night was red carpet night, the first deck movie night. We started off with appetizers. The favorite was a new dip, a Mexican blanco queso dip, which was addicting. Dinner was sausages, four different kinds, smothered in peppers and onions and eaten in rolls. There were two side salads, pasta and fruit. Dinner was just right for a warm summer evening, and it was delicious. When we were finished, we got to the main event, the movie. It was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off which two of my friends had never seen. They loved it and roared in laughter all the way through. During intermission we ate dessert, an ice cream pie with two wonderful ice creams, Chatham chocolate with a hint of cinnamon and coconut. It was perfect to cap off the meal. Of course, no movie is complete without some candy for munching. Last night it was malted milk balls and nonpareils.
I love deck movie night. It’s like a drive-in without the car and the long walk to the bathrooms and the concession stand. We even get to have a break. Next week the deck theater is presenting one of my all time favorite movies, Night of the Hunter. Two of its scenes give me chills every time I watch them. Robert Mitchum, the star, is pure evil. If you haven’t ever seen it, put it on the list to watch.
Today is a perfect day to sit outside and read. Looks as if I’ve planned my day!
Categories: Musings
Tags: deck, ferris buellers day off, ice cream, Malted milk, Night of the Hunter, Nonpareils, outside movie, summer dinner
Comments: 11 Comments
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