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By Dave and Mary
Front Porch Appeal Newsletter
Issue #118 October 2021
"If a year was tucked inside of a clock, then autumn would be the magic hour." - Victoria Erickson
The third quarter of 2021 is already here. We hope this finds you and yours doing well.
Do you embrace the coming of autumn as we do?
Certainly, it's a contemplative season filled with nature's rich colors and amazing awe.
Inside This Edition...
We love that you are here and hope you enjoy these topics in our newsletter.
- Autumn Leaves & Pumpkins Please
- Celebrating Autumn on Our Porch
- Oh, Deer
- Our Back Porch Repair Project - With a Happy Ending
- Thank You As Always
- We'd Love to Have You on Our Newsletter List
Autumn Leaves & Pumpkins Please
Scarecrows, corn rows, pumpkins on the vine.
Leaves curl, wind swirls, Fall is right on time.
(author unknown)
Fall has just begun! Mary and I look forward to cooler days, crunching leaves, and mums on the porch.
Everyone knows that porches love fall especially when decorated with beautiful colors, bountiful pumpkins, and whimsical flower arrangements.
As summer fades and memories collected, fall is the season for stopping by the roadside stand, making home-made breads and soups, football for some, curling up with a blanket
and the book you've been meaning to read, or just enjoying a cup of hot chocolate on the porch.
Enjoy These Fall Pics for a Few Fresh Decorating Ideas
Simple but sophisticated front porch decked out in white
Autumn garland welcomes friends and family
Cascading autumn array
Whimsical autumn wreath idea
Autumn front porch bench with cozy blanket
Autumn is in the air!
Celebrating Autumn on Our Porch
We have our porch ready for fall. Whew! We just got back from an 18-day trip to visit our family.
We traveled to Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina and more. Got to see our family and attend our class reunion.
Mary and I prepared the porch before we left, but waited to put things out till we returned.
We are delighted that the air is crisp where we live now.
It's much welcome relief from the scorching summer heat.
Layers of gold and pumpkins grace our front porch and garden
Enjoy this short tour of our porch; we both love celebrating nature's awesome beauty this time of the year.
Gold cushion covers and whimsical pillow covers for fall
Our cushions are simply wrapped in soft gold fabric for the season. Mary wraps them like you would a gift; they are pinned on the back.
Colorful crotons and mums on the front porch steps
We never paid much attention to crotons until this year - and what a vibrant touch of color they add to our porch steps.
Our celebration of fall!
A little bit of razzle dazzle from layering fabrics, paintings, pumpkin patch and plants make for a lovely front porch.
A rag wreath we made with a painting tucked inside
Using things we already had - fabric, a metal wreath hoop and a painting from last year, we created something slightly new!
Mary's been a little under the weather and this was a very easy solution for our front door.
Oh, Deer!
We have hungry deer. Do you?
If you too are so lucky (or not so lucky) to have deer munch on your porch landscaping, we might have at least one solution that has worked fairly well for us.
At first, I spritzed our front porch plants each night with Liquid Fence, Deer and Rabbit repellant.
That worked really well for us as long as we were home to do it.
But faced with an extended trip, I knew the deer would ravage our plants while we were gone.
So we purchased five covered plastic containers at the Dollar Store.
Plastic container with lid
Then I drilled small holes into the containers just below the lid to keep the rain out but still allow the smell to waft around the plants.
Plastic container with holes at top
We filled the containers with deer repellant, positioned the containers throughout the flower garden, and placed a rock on top of each
container to prevent it from being blown away by the wind. Then off we went!
Plastic containers with deer repellent in the flower garden
We don't know that it actually kept the deer from munching on our plants or if the deer were just being kind to us, but we returned to find our garden intact!
Other remedies include dispersing soap shavings among your plants or using spicy, pungent sprays that will deter deer.
Our Back Porch Repair Project - With a Happy Ending
Water is simply not a porch's friend. Period.
Unbeknownst to us, we had a leak on our back porch roof structure that caused extensive damage and resulted in us having to replace the beam.
I discovered the problem during a rain storm when water was cascading over the beam's metal wrap onto the interior of our back porch.
During initial house construction, a small area of the siding and flashing was improperly installed.
This error allowed water to penetrate where the porch roof met the house roof.
Without us realizing, for a number of years, water was running down the house roof into a small gap in the siding and was captured under the beam by the metal wrap.
Non-supporting beam with water damage
Beam completely soaked through - yikes!
Massive water damage
But....A Happy Ending
All is well now!
Most fortunately, water did not penetrate into the house wall or ceiling and only damaged a non-supporting beam.
We are truly blessed by that!
We replaced the beam and siding, flashed the porch-house joint, and re-wrapped the beam.
The new siding that was put up didn't exactly match the color of our original siding so we painted it to match.
And, now all is perfectly fine.
Thank You As Always
The charm of a window box in autumn
Our sweet Michigan friend, Mary Beth, shared this photo with us of her autumn window box. Isn't it such a joy to see?
We are ever so grateful for your loyalty, your readership with us, the emails you send us, the pictures you share.
You are the one who makes our porch site possible and we thank you!
May you enjoy the changing of seasons, the chill in the air, the muted, organic colors and nature's awe as you sit on your porch this time of year.
Till next time, we hope your lives are blessed beyond reason!
Mary Beth's planter welcomes fall!
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Take a few moments of chill time.
Happy porch sitting from your friends,
Mary and Dave
Life is short. Enjoy your porch.
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