Hands on deck

It's been almost a year since we built the deck on the back of the house and the wood has had plenty of time to cure. Craig started painting the trellis panels, whilst I tackled the spindles. After whizzing into town with Amber to pick up her boyfriend, I returned home to find Craig had been doing a little 'experimental painting', using a quick method of spray painting the trellis (bad idea!) Spray painting trellis can be a messy business he discovered. I offered to take over, with the meticulous but tedious stippling approach instead. After finishing two panels my arm felt like lead and the sun was going down, so I decided to call it a day. I will endevour to try to pick up where I left off in a couple of days or so. Both girls are off to a school Toga party tomorrow, so will be dancing the evening away in white dresses or sheets.

I may delay publishing this post so I can upload a photo of them before they leave. Next day....

The girls opted for white dresses

I can report this week that our raccoon visitors it seems, will NOT be taking up residence in our barn this year - Yay!! This is mainly due to some advanced planning by Craig. He put a radio up in the roof, which constantly plays the local station. The station's current promotional jingle is "We play..... everything" I personally think 'anything' might be a better word to use! I wonder where they dig up some of the songs, and am embarrassed to say that I remember them all so well too!! They seem rather fond of what they refer to as the 'lost' eighties (hmmm, perhaps a few of those 80's songs should stay 'lost'?).

Anyway, the volume got cranked up after we spotted a couple of furry friends perched on the roof about two weeks ago. They were waiting for dusk to break into one if the cupolas. We have seen them using their ultra sharp claws to prize the wooden slats off like matchsticks before. Just to make it quite clear that they were not welcome we aimed a hose pipe as high as possible and gave them a quick shower - this may sound a bit cruel, but it didn't actually reach them with the water, but managed to unnerve them a little. After the huge stinky mess they made last year, it was necessary . You might remember the story of the evacuation of all their babies, which had us all frantically placing duvets and pillows underneath in case they fell!

It has now been two weeks with no sign of them, so we can only assume that they scampered off to someone else's barn with a bit of luck!

Advance apologies to all raccoon lovers reading this blog, and anyone who's favourite music is from the 80's :)

Hazel x