The Turtle Flew the Coop

A few weeks ago I found that the top of the turtle weathervane was gone.  I went up to the roof and found that he had blown off in one of the wind storms and was laying on the back dormer roof.  One of the pieces was a little bent, but otherwise he was fine.  I guess he wasn't fully secured.  I brought him inside and left him propped up inside the house up on the second floor.

This weekend I went to get him and he was nowhere to be found.  We searched the second floor where I left him.  Then we scoured the first floor and the basement - still no turtle.  We made several more detailed searches and still, no turtle.  I couldn't imagine someone taking the upper part of a weathervane.  The copper isn't worth that much and you'd need more parts to make a whole weathervane.  Then, underneath a pile of shingle siding on the second floor, we found him.  He's fairly two-dimensional and apparently one of the subs stacked the extra fiber cement shingles, which are fairly heavy, on top of him.  The mystery was solved.

Anyhow, the deck is on and the final rough inspections take place this week.  Here's the view from the deck.

As you can see, we've already tried it out.  Although there are recycled decking products available, we decided to go with the Azek brand decking because it seems to be the most durable.  They have a great fastener system with matching plugs that cover the screw holes.

  If it wasn't for the dirt, you'd hardly see them.