Here is my old deck – with Brian, my new plumber friend, and Harry.  The deck was made in a hurry with odd scrounged boards.  I have longed for a new one for some time.  At last, I had a little spare money for materials, and I had two volunteers who were good at making things, so away we went!  First they falled a tree.

Then peeled it.

Then we ripped the old deck apart.

The new deck would be both higher and wider.

Worked stopped for a day or two as Fred was due to leave.  I took him into Williams Lake, and loaded up the truck with lumber for the decking.  It was Williams Lake Stampede weekend, and on the way home we met a group of people making their annual pilgrimage into town to enjoy the show.

Then I screwed the decking on.  (This picture is included to show that I do some work as well!  As you can see, the blackflies are still a pest at times.)

The table created a couple of posts back was designed to be placed over the ugly well.  I wanted to cover it up, but I needed something that would easily be removed if I had any trouble with the water.  The roundness of the table demanded that we got creative with the edge of the deck as well.

In the mean time, the steps that Brian was sitting on in the first picture were replaced.  They are partially composed of fir (which is what I had) hence the snazzy dark wood

All this time, it was excessively hot.  This was the shade temperature.

But the deck is in full sun.  The thermometre went off the scale.

It was generally close to freezing in the morning, though.  So when we went outside to enjoy the full moon setting while the sun rose at 5.00:am on the 2nd July, it was quite nippy.

Over a period of several days, Ben had laboured to construct yet another addition to my deck project.

And there we have it!

It will eventually have a back to it, but I don’t have suitable lumber right now.  I’ll pick some up when I drive Ben to the Bella Coola Ferry in a few days.

By now we have a new volunteer, unfortunately only short term.  Erin is coating the boards with linseed oil.  She is from Georgia so seemed impervious to the heat.

We put chairs along the edge to stop the dogs climbing onto the wet oil.

Meanwhile, Ben is being creative again.  Because of all the curves in the structure, it seemed fitting to build – a spiral staircase!

What luck to have had the money and the right volunteers at the same time.  We took the dog barriers down this morning. Tomorrow I will stand upon the new deck while I do Tai Chi!