Robin's Egg Blue

As I clean up, the liquid swirls around the kitchen sink drain, the color and consistency of skim milk. At least the paint is water based and not oil.

A small patch up paint job turned in a two hour late Sunday afternoon project. There were no signs of late afternoon fog, no chill breeze whispering over the hills from the coast. In fact, there was no wind at all this afternoon. A good day for paint to dry up here in foggy redwood country.

The landlord painted my small deck two months ago, the day after I moved in. I moved my few small plants, in rust colored terra cotta pots, onto the deck after the paint had dried. A few weeks later, when I went to move them into sunnier spots on the deck, they took the paint with them. So, I thought I would patch up the bare spots with a few swipes of the paint brush.

Except, when I was done, the rest of the deck looked - well, dirty, after only two months. I ended up painting the whole damn thing. It looks nice, right now. Give it a week or two, and it will probably be covered with dirty footprints again.

Who in their right mind paints a deck robin's egg blue? (Which is basically white with a little blue tint thrown in for coloration) Especially up here in the hills, where we have dirt driveways. Dirt, people, dirt. As in "becomes mud in the rainy season". Painting the house a light color, that I can understand. But the stairs and deck will look dirty in no time.

My landlord, whose house I can see through the trees, has painted all the buildings on the land he owns up here in the same colors. The barn, the house and the garage are all the same robin's egg blue, with dark blue trim. And all the decking and stairs to the decks (each one of the three building has stairs and a deck) are robin's egg blue.

As I wielded the paintbrush this afternoon, I couldn't help thinking that maybe a medium grey would be a better color for a surface that gets a lot of foot traffic.

For now, as we head into fall, I have a deck painted robin's egg blue. Come spring, I'm going to see if my landlord will let me paint it the same color that I am sure it will have become by then - a nice shade of Sierra Foothills Brown.