Gazebo gone

Earlier in the summer I had taken a picture of the pond with the gazebo at the far end of it and I'd started a painting. Yesterday I noticed that I could not see the gazebo and thought at first that perhaps the vegetation had grown up too much. But no, the gazebo is gone. And I also remembered my husband mentioning (and I think I even blogged about it) a fire, which he thought was a bonfire, down near that area a few days (weeks?) ago.

I hope vandals did not burn down that cute white gazebo. My Esteemed One says that he'd heard it was falling apart, but not having walked down to that end of the street, I'd never looked at it up close. Unlike some of my neighbors, I don't feel comfortable tromping around on other people's property.

However, I was mightily tempted yesterday. I was seated in my usual spot in the den, near the sliding glass door, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. For a split second, I wondered whether I was in the middle of a sci-fi movie. This giant metal segmented arm was reaching over the house two doors down. We discovered that the young couple who are rebuilding their deck had apparently reached the point of needing to fill in with cement the pylons that will hold up their deck. Since the houses are too close together to get the truck to the back of the house (and the yard would have been ruined even if they could have driven back there), apparently equipment exists that attaches to the cement truck. They use however many segments needed to reach over the house (a two-story house, I might add), and concrete (cement?) is routed through the extension down to the spot where it is needed. We sat on our deck and watched the whole process. It was exciting and let us know more about what could be done if and when we ever get around to redoing our deck.

I really hate our deck. It's too large and oddly still too unusable. We surmise that the deck began as the usual 12 x 12 square off the den door, but then the families who owned the house kept adding on to it. It's a hodge-podge of levels and angles and rotting boards. We want a sunroom and a porch, not a deck at all. Maybe one day, we'll have the courage to just start tearing off our current monstrosity. My husband mentioned turning the side of the deck area into a rain garden. That surprised me. I didn't know he knew about or cared about such things.

The front porch needs to be reworked, too, but nothing has happened this summer. Someone who shall remain nameless had sworn he could and would do the work himself, but that particular someone has played golf all summer instead.