I always expected that my family and I would have some great times outside once we got our awning, and there were always specific scenes that would play in my mind. Thankfully our awning has helped our yard live up to my expectations, but some things you just can’t plan for; so when something particularly funny happened I thought that it would be great to share. I should start by telling you that our backyard adventures started when we decided to redo our deck. When I say deck I use the term loosely. The structure that passed for our deck was basically a square platform that barely held two chairs; three if everyone was willing to squeeze together and stand up every time someone needed to walk past. It was a rather pathetic sight to say the least. I wanted an outdoor space that my family could truly enjoy; a space where we had room to relax, so we set about making that happen. We widened and extended the deck, bought a new grill, and added a modest sized hot tub, but something was missing. It was a great space, but we still barely used it. It was always too hot to sit outside for long, so after an hour or so everyone would run back inside to hide from the sun. After the amount of money we’d put in I didn’t want to see all of our hard work go to waste, so we decided to add an awning to help us get the most out of our new outdoor oasis. We started looking through the selection of Eclipse retractable awnings to decide which one would be the best fit. We also looked at a number of solar shades, in particular the patio and pergola solar shade. Although it was nice, we decided that we wanted something that allowed us to control the amount of sun on our deck, so we ultimately decided on the motorized retractable awning. It allowed us to control how much sun our deck had and how much of it was actually under the shade. We had the perfect setting, and it was amazing. There were long days spent with cool drinks and plenty of good books. We had countless barbecues and we got a lot of use out of our new hot tub. That’s where this particular incident starts. We’d all had a great day outside, but it had become kind of cool even with the sun blinding us from overhead, so we decided to relax in the hot tub under the awning. Everyone went inside to get ready and by the time we came back we heard a duck quacking. We looked for it everywhere but no one could find it, so we assumed that it must have waddled under the house or flown away. The kids had grown impatient so we told them to go ahead and get in. Needless to say they found the duck, swimming in the hot tub! It seems that we weren’t the only ones who wanted to relax after a long day. We all tried to chase it out of the tub, but it seemed that it had no intention of leaving as it paddled away happily. I never thought that we’d be sharing our oasis with the local wildlife, but I guess everyone loves living life under the awning
