Deck Weather at the Duckworthy Estate

This afternoon I looked out over our deck to the gardens below and spied this daylily in bloom.  It's BELLA SERA!  I presented it to Kathy, who is polishing up a plan for the patio that will go below the deck.  We're using "Bella" stone, too.

A couple of days ago, the Branco crew laid the deck boards in front of the dining room and kitchen.  Here's Steve Brandt, President of the company, checking a spacing tool.  It has guides for narrow screws on either end.  The screws go into the deck boards at an angle, on their sides, so that there are no visible screws or screw holes on the surface of the deck.

You might notice in this picture that the deck boards are not at a 45 degree angle, while the corner of the frame is 45 degrees.  The reason the boards are not at 45 degrees is that Steve determined that he could use standard 18-foot boards at this angle.  At 45 degrees, he would need longer boards that are fabulously more expensive, and there would be a lot of wasted wood.  Knowing the level of talent and skill in the Brandt family, we told Steve to do whatever worked best.

This situation would make me freak out if I were building it, but to Steve, it's just a saw cut.

Voila!  I love the odd look of that corner.  It's what a custom deck should look like.  Here's Carl Brandt, Steve's father, working on the longer boards.  What a team they make!

And here's Tim Yanko using the "fine tool" to cut the ends off the siding boards so that the deck boards can have a snug connection to the side of the house.

Looking to the right from the deck that evening, I took a picture of my "Nebraska" keeper bed and my seedling beds below it.

I named it "Nebraska" because it feels like I'm weeding a large state when the weeds get the upper hand.  I've resolved never to let them get the upper hand again.  The little yellow flags along the lower edge of the seedling beds are there to mark a boundary so that I can sprinkle grass seed on the correct amount of path between the beds.

Here's deck weather at the Duckworthy Estate.  The only thing missing are the ducks.

One builds a deck for this time of year, not for the smoldering furnace afternoons of July and August.  The season from Labor Day to Thanksgiving provides many good times for sitting outside with a glass of sparkling water over ice with a wedge of lime.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of our move here.  A squadron of ducks were sunning themselves on the dock, "Boone's Dock," when we arrived.  Hence, Duckworthy Estate.

Quack!