On the level

It occurred to me that I never posted an update on how the Amish were getting on with our deck, despite promising to do so.

The reason I forgot was that the two Amish fellows who did the job did it so quickly that they were off almost before I knew it.  They finished reattaching our deck to the house almost before I'd written the post announcing their arrival.  They also worked on a neighbouring deck, so they were in the vicinity for about another hour, but then they were off.

Mrs Walles tried to snap a photo of one of them while they were working but the opportunity never arose.  I had wanted to photograph the hat that one of them left on the ground while he worked, but I didn't even manage that.

I went out to inspect the results while they were working on the deck next door and they asked very cheerily if it was better, and we said yes - it was good to be able to walk out there without wondering if it was going to fall down under you.  That was the extent of our interaction, though.  The neighbours, native Pennsylvanians, just took it in their stride and were talking away trying to convince them to do extra work on the deck (which they did).  All in all it took them about 90 minutes to reattach two decks to the houses and replace the railings on one of them.  And then they were gone.  Raising a deck a few inches isn't quite in the same league as raising a barn, but it was still intriguing to watch.