Impetus

I worked hard today. I cleaned my gutters. A friend (with roofing assessment abilities) had come a week ago to take a look at my possibly damaged roof. He concluded that the roof looked fine and he thought the water infiltration issue was due to the crumbling mortar of the chimney. Anyway, he DID note that I need to clean my gutters. This is no surprise to me, as I rarely feel like paying someone else to do it for me, but lack the size ladder needed to approach the task from the downslope side of the roof (there is no way I'm going to stand on the edge of a 8:12 roof and lean downslope towards the edge). My friend had a nice ladder that reminded me of the one my sister and BIL have, so I borrowed theirs and today endeavored to clean my extremely full gutters.
It took forever, or seemed to. Because of the weight of the crap I was taking out (a majority of which was wet and smelled like a dirty fish tank), I had to use one trash bag per 7'-10' stretch of gutter. There was, unfortunately, one side I couldn't really reach. On the alley side of my house, there's a small retaining wall. On the upper side of this, the ladder was a bit too short, but also didn't really give much slope on the ladder. I really would have preferred to put the ladder on the lower side of the wall, but then the ladder really was too short.
So. I'll have to figure out what to do there, but the rest is, if not "clean as a whistle," certainly clear of dead (and live*) vegetation.

When I was done, I was filthy and my ankle ached. Time for a nice hot bath!



I rested in the tub, listening to a CD of John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, with Eric Clapton, which I loved. (Thank you, SmartMan!) It has nice similarities to the sound of the Beatles, whom I've always loved. I am now retrieved from the bath, cleaned and loose jointed, and am listening to The Best of Cream. Nice, but not as compelling as the previous CD. (OK now "Sunshine of Your Love" is playing. That one is really good. Strong bass line.)

The funny thing about finishing up the gutter cleaning chore: I realized how little really hard work I've done lately. [laugh] Perhaps I should amend that. I've been doing little hard physical work. I have been doing a lot of hard emotional work. Very necessary. Not fun, but what hard work ever is?
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* I had two or three places where weeds were growing in the material in the gutter.