Our deck has been rotten for three years but my idea to rebuild it was met with resistance. Even after someone’s leg went through a section I was informed that only some of the boards were bad. However, baking delicious loaves of country sourdough bread inspired visions of a bread oven. Somehow a hammock and upper deck got factored in and the impetus to launch the project was born. So we pulled the deck out, it really was rotten. More than just a few boards disintegrated in the process. No matter. Deconstruction and reclaiming the “good” wood was fun. Beneath our deck was a vivid habitat for many a creature including a couple of Carpenter Bees. They are shiny black cousins to bumble bee. They are very large. One took a particular interest in me. I must have ruined it lodging. No stings though, just a lot of bomber style diving toward me. There were more spiders than I could identify in the time we had. There were many Black Widows, which explains the source of my bite a few years back (I was fine just had a nasty looking thing happening on/in my leg). Note: rotting wood houses many o’creature. We also found a dead opossum which Dipak made me remove. He said that kind of stuff was my “department.” How does dead animal removal become someone’s department? Our hardy chickens helped out too by devouring all of the protein laden bugs they could find. See, we all benefited from removing the rotten deck; stronger chickens, better eggs, fewer spiders to handle, and the prospect of an outdoor spot.

A homeowner might use the words entropy and pests to describe all that we encountered but I think it is really quite beautiful that our deck had such a complex ecology reclaiming it. My busy urban location is home to so much more than first meets the eye. I love that.

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