water droplets

or, what I did to my porch

first picture is my screen porch to the south - second is the view to the west- third is the view to the north from my screen porch

We love living in the woods. BUT...
The &*()(&d@%#$ elm trees spread these long hanging jewels of pollen fronds that are perfectly engineered to get caught in our porch screen. Each late spring, early summer, I have a thick dusting of this powder over everything , and the screens are so clogged that it is actually blurring the view. I have to VACUUM my porch screens, and vacuum the little gaps between floor boards, and vacuum my metal mesh outdoor table. And you can see the trails on the screens where I have and have not vacuumed. I don't even want to talk to you about how this mess affects my allergies and sinus.

I knew there had to be a better way.
Earlier this summer, I decided that I was feeling a lot more energetic, so I bought a pressure washer, and cleaned my porch. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Well, let me start with the fact that I had never used one, and never seen one used, and the outside spigot is MILES (well, really...) from the porch. Let me also add that , at the time, the yard had not been mowed THIS YEAR.

So I was wearing myself out, sweating profusely, just trying to extract the hose from the thigh-high weeds, because apparently, a kink in the hose won't allow it to build up any pressure, and you might as well just sprinkle water from a cup, and take back the &(**(@$& thing, and get your hundred dollars back, and...

So I finally got some pressure built up, though it was an hour and a half later before I actually got to use the thing. It really works!! I can actually SEE the difference in color of the boards where I wash. I thought the graying was attractive, and a natural aging, and irreversible. I just wanted to get rid of the green, mossy-looking parts. But, no, the gray IS reversible, and I can see the GRAIN of the wood on my porch!! And it takes forever, because every porch baluster has THREE SIDES that I have to wash, and each side of each piece of wood needs MORE THAN ONE PASS, because I can't seem to hold the wand steady for more than ten inches. And I have to wash the screens too, because, again, you can see the trails where I have washed and where I have not.

I was already tired - did I mention that I have no stamina - so I finished the thing a couple days later.

We've lived here ten years, and this is the first time I've pressure washed anything, but it leaves the wood beautiful, and I never want to do this again.

The directions say you are supposed to let it dry for two days before sealing. (Sealing????)

Hoping that a wood sealer would mean I don't have to do this again.... All of them are tinted, apparently, so I pick up a gallon of honey brown, and buy three paint brushes, and .... did I mention that I have to paint THREE sides of every baluster, and FOUR sides of the ones down the stairs, and the stairs, and the stair rails, and.... I ran out of oil stain.

A week after I bought the washer, I finished the porch. It is gorgeous, and it is water resistant, and I have seldom been so physically tired in my life. Now, how do I enter this in my exercise log? It's very physical - moving, bending, stretching, in the heat, sweating.

The next week I started the other porch, on the west side. They took hours, and three gallons of oil stain, and probably three gallons of sweat, but they are beautiful.