Dot`sThoughts

Because a couple friends asked, I am including a picture of the easy simple trellis I made for the climbing flowers by my side porch. You will see the fancy posts on my porch showing behind the trellis, plus the large flower box I made years ago sitting upon the porch railing. I also made my own railings going down the porch steps that Walt and I made years ago. The flowers in the large flower box are the same ones I keep in the house all winter. They just look much better and grow better outside. I figured that if I made a fancy trellis it would just take away from the fancy old time posts that I love so much. Over the years I have scraped them down and re-painted them about every 4 or 5 years to keep them looking ok. They were origionally on an old house and the owner was going to toss them over the dump and replacing them with a more modern porch. My son was carrying them to the dump for him with his truck and I told him I wanted them. I also had enough extra posts to put them all down the long porch front on the back porch. They needed a lot of hard work sanding before I could re-paint them, but I just liked their design.
When putting up the trellis I noticed that I needed to scrape down and re-paint the bottom board under the railing. Decided to let it wait till later even though the trellis isn`t attached to the porch, so I still could do it before the flowers got any higher. But it would be more work to get all the scraped off paint out of the flowers. Know I should have done it before I put up the trellis, but will still be time after the flowering is done and before winter gets here. So, thats another house job waiting for me to do.
The long white board that looks like it is on the top of the trellis is actualy the top of the porch railing under the flowerbox and not connected to the trellis. The top of the trellis is the slanted top thin boards that start shorter and get taller as they reach the center slat from each side. The green at the bottom is the flower stems starting to climb up the slats.

You will also see a small hanging Horse near the top right. It hangs from a Welcome sign that a neighbor gave me for Christmas a couple years ago. Winter had ruined the paint off it, so this spring I repainted it.
The yellow can is just a coffee can that I painted and filled 2/3rds full with sand for those who smoke. I decided to stop all indoor smoking when Walt started having trouble breathing and later he went on oxygen. This can meant no cigg butts for me to pick up on the ground. Now, everyone is so used to smoking outside that I still need the can for putting their cigg butts out in.

The white clapboards showing thru the step railing is the end of the small shed sitting in front of that side of the porch that I made a few years ago to hold the larger trash can and re-cyclables in - out of my house. I used clapboards so it would match the house. The green broom is one I keep on my porch. I swept off the steps and hadn`t put the broom back up on the porch yet before taking the picture.