It's a Labor of Love

I thought creating a garden was hard work, and have loved every minute of it, from clearing the land to harvesting the crops, and am still loving it and am going to continue loving it.  i was thrilled to find out today that we still have a few Cherokee Tomatoes in the pots in our yard looking like they are going to ripen on the vine; I am beside myself with joy about this, and can't wait to eat them!

But 'law!' (this is an Appalachian term used when you want to say 'my gosh' or goodness sakes' or 'maaaan'...you get the idea...learned it from Ronnie, our deck builder and now friend), building a deck (a big deck, I know) is really hard physical labor!  A labor of love of course, but I am worn out this evening (in a good way). 

With that said, much progress to share today...

The deck before we started today...

...and the far corner seen from the bedroom window...

Today we hung our last joist!

We hung our last girder!

And we progressed nicely with the flooring!  We have passed the 8' mark, so we are more than half way!  We still have to trim the edges, so to speak, but we are getting there!

 This is the corner view from the bedroom, as you can see, there is flooring there!

The inspectors, Johny (Mountain Man), Ronnie (deck builder and friend), & Ron (friend and neighbor) all reviewing the days work.

All in all, a great days work.  Tomorrow, we attempt to finish, provided Ronnie's morning job finishes with enough time that he can come work with us.  Regardless, we will be laying deck flooring tomorrow!  But have I said lately how wonderful Ronnie is and how fortunate we are to have him helping us build this deck?  Well, truth be told, we are helping him, he is the one with the know-how & experience, but he puts his heart and soul into it just like it was his own deck! 

Life is good.  Physical labor is good.  Ripening Cherokee tomatoes are good.  The weather is better than good (I didn't mention that earlier, but woo hoo, the weather is cool and dry and fall is a' comin'!).  My deck is becoming really awesome good.  And my bed is looking really, really, really good!

Thanks for reading my blog, you are the best f/f/r/s/f's, see you tomorrow,
Lise