Monday, May 30, 2011

What I did today...

After many days and nights of this.... perhaps you can't see that the rain is coming down in torrential downpour style and just shooting right over the gutter and washing away all that good mulch that Willink Landscaping put there last spring... There is a birdbath right below this that is still tipped over from the winter, but hey, it hasn't been spring here for very long!! And all of that lovely mulch has washed itself right into my little water feature and it's rather a mess and since it was a lovely day today, I thought I'd like to fix the fountain thingy, but it is silly if I spend all that time doing it and then it pours buckets again and makes it all a mess...so after it cooled off a bit today, I got the ladder and cleaned this section...and then did the rest of the front of the house and scooped out all the old rotten leaves and the tree seeds and little stick and YUCK...It was pretty stinky! and then I ran the hose and flushed it out....and then as long as I was on a roll, I thought I'd do the back, too. The way the gutter is on my ranch house, you can reach most all of it with the step ladder safely...you notice I said MOST....

See that place there where the gutter is bending down just a bit??? Yeah, that's where I was hanging from it when I reached a little further on the last 4 foot to clean out and the ladder and I went different directions. I had thought about this possibility, but was on a roll, so I kept going. Scott was just inside the office there with the windows closed. If you yell loud enough, your husband can hear your screaches quite clearly. Luckily for me, no neighbors came over. After the initial swing, I was able to sort of steady myself on the ladder, which was tipped sideways, but wedged between the house and a raised garden bed...but I didn't have any leverage to get myself down, and I wasn't jumping...hey, I'm pushing 50 pretty hard. My arms are a little sore, and I might feel it more in the morning. After the hubby helped me down, I was pretty shaky, but admitted that if it wasn't me, I'd have thought it was pretty funny. By tomorrow, I'll be laughing mostly about it. Before I published this, I had to call my mom and tell her. She was cleaning out her gutters, too this week. I told her I'd send my 13yr old over to finish hers. I'm not sure she'd swing as good as me, or that my dad would hear her as quick as I got my help. Maybe I'd better go ice this sticky elbow. Live and learn....



2 comments:

Be Still and KNOW... said...

Didn't you know that's why you have 13 years olds...and esp sons...

Glad you're ok... we'll laugh about it next week... after the aches go away.

Lisa Loo said...

oh dear!
I'm gone for a couple days and bam! You are swinging from the rooftops--literally!! What am I going to do with you?!