What's Under Your Deck?

If you have a deck that is so low to the ground that you can't see under it, what do you think is under there? Especially if a previous owner built the deck.

Our deck was old and ugly, so we are building a new one. I recently began pulling off the existing floor boards, and was surprised how much junk was under there!

Our problem is that animals could get under there, but we couldn't. Once a cat died under there and I had to locate it "by smell" and tear off some of the floor boards to get it out. Now that I've taken all of the floor boards off, we've found lots of bones, toys and garbage under there. Several years ago, my wife washed her white canvas shoes and set them out on the deck to dry. The next morning they were gone! We now have found them under the deck. One was still in tact but the other was chewed up and eaten down to the sole. I guess the one still had too much soap on it.

The above pictures really don't show how much junk was drug under there. As disgusting as it was, my daughter enjoyed the treasure hunt. We did find a few keepers - a baseball, a golf ball and a tin Pepsi can from the 70's or 80's (which is an antique to her). Together with gloves on, we collected a sampling of the "junk" and made a sort of "still life" for you.

I was an Art Minor in college and had to draw or paint a lot of still lifes but none of them were quite like this one!

Needless to say, working on the deck has taken some time away from my blogging. I am trying to finish building the new deck before the main gardening season begins next month. I have managed to get some broccoli and lettuce hardened off and ready to plant. I also just built two new beds for my daughters to have their very own garden. I plan to post much about that as a "Kids Corner" of GardenDesk.

As for the deck, we will be fencing off the new one to try to keep out the raccoons, foxes, opossums dogs and cats - all the animals that we have seen going under there. If you have a low deck, you might want to investigate a little. You never know whats lurking under there!