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Up on the Rooftop
Nov. 21st, 2010 07:42 pm Nothing so fun as holiday lights, which would be premature anyway. I was up on my roof to clear out the gutters.
I climbed the rusted TV antennae tower by the house, and rooted out the leaves, twigs and maple trees growing in the leaf loam, and dug out all the pine needles on the west side, and swept off the roof, which was drifted up with litter. I also scooped off piles of excrement, and wondered whether it was possum, raccoon, or squirrel.
This was terrifying to me. I kept making little whimpering noises as I lay on my tummy and scooped. Dino spotted me from the ground., ready to get Dad if things got bad. He kept encouraging me, telling me I was doing great, and how many feet I had left to go.
Once I got the clogged gutters done, it was time to get down. I delayed this by clearing vines off of the wood stove chimney. With Dino encouraging me, I finally managed to get up the courage to clamber down. I clung to my boy, trembling a bit. He very sweetly murmured back to me various encouraging things I've said to him over the years after he's been through something scary. (He'll make a good dad.)
We'd had to replace the west end gutters one year because ice melting off the roof did not drain down the gutters, because the runs were full of detriss. Instead, four to six foot icicles formed along the entire side of the house, and pulled the gutters off the roof. So now, I make sure that cleaning the gutters happens every fall before the first big snow or hard freeze.
I climbed the rusted TV antennae tower by the house, and rooted out the leaves, twigs and maple trees growing in the leaf loam, and dug out all the pine needles on the west side, and swept off the roof, which was drifted up with litter. I also scooped off piles of excrement, and wondered whether it was possum, raccoon, or squirrel.
This was terrifying to me. I kept making little whimpering noises as I lay on my tummy and scooped. Dino spotted me from the ground., ready to get Dad if things got bad. He kept encouraging me, telling me I was doing great, and how many feet I had left to go.
Once I got the clogged gutters done, it was time to get down. I delayed this by clearing vines off of the wood stove chimney. With Dino encouraging me, I finally managed to get up the courage to clamber down. I clung to my boy, trembling a bit. He very sweetly murmured back to me various encouraging things I've said to him over the years after he's been through something scary. (He'll make a good dad.)
We'd had to replace the west end gutters one year because ice melting off the roof did not drain down the gutters, because the runs were full of detriss. Instead, four to six foot icicles formed along the entire side of the house, and pulled the gutters off the roof. So now, I make sure that cleaning the gutters happens every fall before the first big snow or hard freeze.
