Hi, everyone! Since the middle of May, I’ve been helping Grandma and Grandpa with projects at both Fairport and Sodus. It’s been a busy time! Grandma did take me back to Highland Park after the Lilac festival was over to see my lilac friends in full bloom. They were pretty, but I think that last snow hurt some of the flower buds. I don’t think there were as many blossoms on the shrubs this year as I remember from other years! Now that all the crowds are gone, my groundhog friends came out to see me.
When we’re in Fairport, I’ve been helping Grandma and Grandpa work on repairing the back deck. There’s a lot to do! After we took all the deck boards off the upper section, we could see that the support structure needed a lot of work! Grandpa had to put in a lot of reinforcing boards for the old joists. I helped Grandpa make sure the new supports would be a level surface for the new decking! The chipmunks are really confused about what is going on!
On May 20, Moose-san and Tilly came out to Sodus with Joe-san and Nancy-san to spend the night. We went to the Point to watch sunset, but there were clouds at the horizon. The next day, Harlan-san and Katie-san came out to help Grandpa and Joe-san put the dock sections in the water. Katie-san has brand new boots, so we made sure we admired them!
The next Monday, our new decking was delivered in Fairport! It came on a great big flatbed truck with a little forklift truck riding on the back! The driver did a really good job of getting the long, heavy, bendy bundle of Trex decking onto the driveway! From there, Grandma and Grandpa moved it into the garage, one piece at a time, until we are ready to use it.
Grandpa finished reinforcing the joists under the upper deck, then he had to put in extras because the new deck boards aren’t as stiff as the old ones. Then Grandma and I stapled black plastic over all the joists so they wouldn’t collect water. Once everything was ready, the new decking went on pretty quickly! Doesn’t it look nice?
We took a break from the Fairport project to go back out to Sodus for part of Memorial Day weekend. I helped Grandma plant basil in the sandbox, but we had to pull out a lot of mint plant runners to make room. The mint wants to take over the entire planter! I was happy to see the rhododendron start to bloom. The winter cage worked! The azaleas aren’t blooming much. I think they got nipped by the same weather that affected the lilac blooms in Highland Park!
After we got back to Fairport, Grandpa got the rest of the Trex decking on the upper part of the deck in one day! Grandma helped carry the boards and stood on them so Grandpa could tighten the fasteners. Then Grandpa put on the new top deck railing. He said there are lots of “fiddly bits” to build a railing support around the redwood uprights! Grandpa had to get one more piece of Trex railing, too!
Now Grandpa is working on the lower section of deck. I helped him take the screws out of the old deck boards! The supports underneath were in even worse shape than those on the upper deck section! Grandpa had to remove them completely! It’s lucky there was some sound wood left from the old deck boards to make new joists!
Today it’s been rainy all day, so Grandpa couldn’t work on the deck project at all. He says there are some more “fiddly bits” to do, but then we can start putting Trex decking on the lower deck. Maybe tomorrow! The chipmunks are going to have to find a new way to get under the deck, because Trex doesn’t have any knotholes in it!
Love,
Lion-san
We are glad that Grandma found her favorite lilac. Nancy-san said she liked that one too. We all had a good time at Sodus Bay that one weekend! Grandpa sure is working hard. All that decking! Wow! That looked like a lot of work. We are glad Grandma planted basil at Sodus. Mint has a way of transplanting itself. We were glad to see the rhododendron cages worked well! Ours is starting to bloom now and I think you are right about the late snow killing of the azalea blossoms off because our biggest one which is white only had three flowers on it. The orange one had lots of flowers. The mountain laurel looks like it has a lot is coming on it too but the lilacs were all skimpy.