Time to Spruce up the Porch

It occurred  to  me  that  for  someone  who has a blog named Coffee on the Porch With Me, I have a pretty sorry looking porch. I guess technically it's a deck. In fact, I have two, one that faces east and one that faces west. Both porches are partially covered  by the roof and partially exposed. Both porches are also directly in the line of fire of very large spruce trees. Those are, of course, the ones with the small  needles, just the perfect size for collecting in the spaces between the boards

Two weekends ago I took all the furniture off the back porch, swept it off, and used the garden  hose to shoot all of the pine needles and other detritus  between the boards.

Today I started to do the same thing to the other porch which is much bigger. There was so much stuff stuck between the boards  that I had to retrieve  my handy dandy hooked blade  tool that I use to dig weeds out from between the stones of the front walk. I managed to pull out a ridiculous amount of needles and maple keys  (bleh, cat fur, bird feathers, unidentifiable items) and then finished up with the hose. It had  begun to rain during all of this  but I was determined to get that part of the job done.

Interrupted  by the rain

Furniture set off the porch

Mother's day flowers, the picture doesn't  really capture the colour

This will be the next step.

I will then use a deck cleaner and a stiff brush to scrub the boards and make both porches presentable again. When you live in an old house in the country, the jobs are never ending.
There are also three cans of paint and five more perennial beds with my name on them! However there is also a nice Mother's Day supper in my future as well.