A Railing for the Deck Stairs

For some unknown reason, the person who built our deck only put a railing on one side of the stairs.

This always bothered me for both symmetry and safety reasons. So as part of my outdoor beautification efforts, I bought some pressure treated lumber and added a second railing. It is build to match the existing, with weird angles and everything. 

I also added another round of grass seed to the vegetable garden area. Hopefully it will fill in a little more this time. Also while outside my husband did a great trim job on the cedar hedge while my mother and I directed and cleaned up branches behind him. This hadn’t been trimmed since we moved in and was looked pretty rough, even Tom can see the improvement here.

And now we know: hedge trimming is a team activity…

Seeding the Vegetable Garden

I am no longer allowed to buy plants. Tom says it’s like throwing away money since they always die. So the large vegetable garden was a waste of backyard space in a prime sunny location. 

We (I) decided it would be great to have a patio there to expand our useable space. Then I saw the price of stones plus gravel plus all the digging required and scraped that idea. Instead, I bought a bag of grass seed, dug up the remaining plants and seeded the area. It’s not come up quite as nicely as I imagined, I think another round of seed is required. 

And now we know: this grass seed thing seems like a loosing battle; you lay a ton, birds eat like half of it, then only half of the remaining half actually grows.