Fences & Roses

  climbing rose 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

Whether he is propelled by grief or the absence of the X-Box (which has been on loan to his neice and nephew all month) I may never know, but Martin just can't stop getting stuff done. Like building a new fence. Our new fence is beautiful, functional and really just the thing. And for a better look at it and not the roses climbing up it see here. The impetus behind the new fence project was the rapid deterioration of the old fence, however a happy side-effect is that my climbing rose which had been suffering from a nasty case of powdery mildew seems thrilled at the added air flow that has come out of the new fence and serious removal of weeds/dead wood that was a part of this project. I thought it was possibly a lost cause as all the buds on it earlier in the year whithered and died, but since finding this new structure to support it and more room to breath it almost immediately sprung into flower and has started putting out heaps of healthy green leaves.

I played my usual part in the endeavour which is to say, with paintbrush in hand I stained it all "Evening Smoke" which was supposed to be a charcoal grey but at this point is really pretty darned close to black. I assume it will fade a bit. But the bulk of this project has been fueled by the endless reserve of energy that is Martin.

We're facing the first morning of a three day weekend here (though Martin is at work for another few hours) and as we lay in bed this morning we discussed what to do with a rare opportunity to have two days off together this Sunday/Monday. Martin made murmerings about building a deck. My "should-do" list includes starting to think about residing the lower half of our house and prepping to paint it. And as I sit here typing this I can see that one of the gutters off the mudroom has come undone, which should be seen to before the Fall and rain sneak up on us. But if I had my druthers? I'd spend it near some sort of body of water with a good summer read. I have a feeling the driving force of Martin won't let that happen though.