Wednesday 28 May 2008

Spring Cleaning

The eavestroughs are full of black goo with sticks and dead leaves blocking the downpipes, so every rainy day it looks like a scale model of Niagara Falls coursing off the roof.
Time to clean up!

This job usually gets done twice a year.... spring and fall. When my sons were little, they would love to get up on the roof to "help", meanwhile I would dread finding one of them in a crumpled heap on the ground. It never happened, thank goodness.

Last November an early winter put an end to the usual fall cleanup. We didn't even rake the leaves as we were in Florida, and came home to everything covered in snow!

This gooey, black, toxic smelly stuff includes a couple of dead birds... some flakes of brick from the chimney... some unidentified seedlings starting to take root.... indestructible beanpods from the Catalpa tree...

.... and this is just a small portion of the haul. YUK! This is my part of the job (the easy part), shovel it into bags ready for yard waste pickup day and hose down the patio afterwards.
The Space Cadet deserves a medal!

19 comments:

  1. That's quite a job and a necessary one too. I know The Space Cadet is glad it's done.

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  2. He definitely deserves a medal - as does the mother of the two small boys who let them be boys and climb up on the roof to help!

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  3. Wow, that's quite a job and it's amazing how much "gunk" can actually accumulate up there!
    Whew, now it's done and yes, I think a medal is well deserved!!

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  4. Yay Space Cadet. I know that's SUCH a yucky job. Good work you two! (You did wonderfully well with the photos!)

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  5. That is quite the glop.....i looked back at the pics of Tessa, the frog and the 'shrooms.....you take some of the best pictures.

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  6. Oh Nevada hates that job as well, he has to do that once in awhile as ours get full too. But we don't get much rain around here, but sure have been having a down pour last few days.

    Getting ready to leave tomorrow for a few days with our rv and meeting a few rv friends

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  7. I got this stuff installed last year and saves me falling off the roof all the time! Pic pinched from the internet.

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  8. Indeed, thats quite a job!

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  9. How nice to have that window to climb out from! Thanks for the reminder. I need to set up the ladder for roof work and scoop gutter muck in a few days.

    Hey, can that stuff go into the compost heap?

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  10. oooooo, gross. I think I would take your job too. I don't mind heights but digging out dead birds I do mind.

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  11. Eeek. That gave me the shivers! I would also have opted for your job.

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  12. Its amazing what accumulates in a short amount of time. Space cadet has done a supurb job and so have you.

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  13. Not the best or easiest of jobs but none the less it need to be done.. I'm sure doing it with the family helps it along.

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  14. Sorry dogbait, do not mean to rain on your eves, but that would not work that well this side of the pond, 3 feet of snow on that mesh????

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  15. I hope for his sake that you are a bit nervous also for Space Cadet when he's on the roof!

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  16. It's one of the chores of house ownership, Ex-S! BUT! Don't you have those drain pipes that have the mesh on top to keep stuff out?? It didn't take us long to install them on our house, let me tell you!

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  17. ewwwww! that's a job i've never had to do and from looking at it, hope i'll never have to do.

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  18. What a job - and twice a year. Gosh.
    I say to myself, it's better the young ones does this kind of work.
    And they do. Summerhome only - not in our Winterhome, cause that's been taken care of.

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  19. Yuck indeed! The Space Cadet deserves TWO medals.

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