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south and east rail completed in the heat
Thursday, July 2 2026
Despite the ongoing heat wave, I continued work on the south deck today. First, though, I drove into Uptown Kingston to get four-inch versions of those special screws that replace lag bolts "in most applications." Gretchen wanted me to pick up some guitar picks at the guitar store, but it was before 11:00am and they were closed. But I was able to get a ninety-six-count box of generic pseudoephedrine at Walgreens. I'd taken 120mg of that at least an hour before setting out and was running low.
When I finally waded out of the relative cool of the house into the oppressive heat outdoors, I began my deck work by recycling two of the four-by-four pillars I'd removed, using them as additional pillars for the 19-foot southmost rail that had been making that long span between just two posts. With additional posts, the structure became much less flimsy, though the posts were initally each fastened on the bottom with only a single structural screw.
Later I used by notch-and-lap technique to make a 20 foot long two by six out of 16 and 8 foot pieces, three structural screws, and a fair amount of Gorilla Glue. I then attached this to the top of the 20-foot two-by-four I'd installed as the initial southmost rail structure, laying it flat against that so the two produced an L-shaped cross-section.
Meanwhile, the eastmost rail of that same deck continued to be something of a mess. It had been made using the flawed design where rail pillars interrupted the top rail completely, causing the rail to eventually bend at the pillars as they leaned in whatever direction the underlying joist had decided to twist. Additionally, the top of the rails had been covered with some sort of non-structural moulding that had proved particularly susceptible to rot. I removed that moulding, cut off the intervening pillar so it ended just below the level of the two-by-six comprising the top surface of the new southmost rail, and then measured and cut a two-by-six to span the entire length of east rail (which was about 130 inches). As I screwed it down, I pulled the flopping rail system beneath it as close as I could get to plumb, and once that flat-two-by-six was in place, that entire east rail was now reasonably plumb and far more solid than it had ever been. In the course of doing this work, it was no surprise to discover that the deck was not square and its southeast corner was slightly acute. As I mitred the top boards where the rails met at that corner, I had to alter the cut slightly to deal with this. It's always a bit depressing to work poorly-built structures that has started to fall apart, and this tended to make me work more sloppily than I normally would. My cuts were more ragged and there were various minor accidents that left scars in the wood. But I've found that a mix of Gorilla Glue and scrap wood or sawdust is a pretty effective filler material for such mistakes. Also, it was heartening to see how much better things started looking once I had two of the three lengths of railing completed.
I decided all this work in the heat had earned me the right to drink, so I started with a bottle of Modelo Especial, which I drank while taking Charlotte for her late afternoon walk, which was just a little ways down the Gulleys Trail and then back on the Stick Trail. Since I'd last been through there, a mid-sized basswood had fallen in the trail right where it crosses the Chamomile.
Gretchen was off getting a haircut and doing pilates from the mid afternoon until 7:00pm. Later she told me that the person who cuts her hair still insists that she wear a mask while getting her hair cut, as if were still in the grim days of the covid pandemic. Evidently this mask thing is still big among parts of the left who obsess about disability rights and inclusivity. For Gretchen and me, though, it's absurd.
Before sunset, I went over to our neighbor A's house to water her tomatoes. While there, I snooped around the backyard a little to see what other odd artifacts the previous owners, the Berniers, who had lived there since the 1950s, had left behind. I noticed that a fairly impressive wall of stacked bluestone pieces defining the boundary between the yard and the forest. But it's very inexpertly assembled and, for part of it, someone attempted to mortar it with cement or concrete, which subsequently broke apart. The bluestone that was used is mostly large pieces of oddball shapes, with very few flat pieces at all, like rejects from a bluestone mine.
Looking west along the north side of the Chamomile Wall in the late afternoon. Click to enlarge.
A white pine snag along the Gullies Trail. Click to enlarge.
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