Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Kat On A Tin Roof

Haha……….yes the title is correct. I, the dumbo that I can be sometimes, got up on my roof this weekend. Believe me, I paid for it and am still paying for it. I actually did a lot of work outside this weekend and between my back, hips, legs and arms, I don’t know what hurts worse.  But I digress……….back to the roof.  Since I moved here I have not cleaned the roof off except to get up on the back of the bench closest to the house (I have a bench that goes around the whole back deck, with the exception of the stairway down, and the bench has a back ledge about 6 inches wide) and with my rake, rake off what I could reach. I am surrounded by pines, oaks and sweet gums. The majority over the house is pine and oak. So I had a large build up of pine straw, oak leaves and acorns. We are talking 13 years almost.  The last 3 times it’s rained I have had water leaking on my front porch right in front of the door. And that is due to the fact of the buildup of pine straw, acorns and leaves and it was backing up under the flashing. I had to do something. And I’m too proud, stupid, whatever you want to call it, to call on one of my guy friends to come do it for me. I hate asking for help.

So, here I am, up on the roof. I got up there real easy. Just put the 10 foot ladder on the back deck up to the roof and climb up. The tricky part for me was getting down. Yea………….    And I couldn’t even trim up all the trees over the roof because every time I tried to get close to the edge enough, my head and my stomach would start doing whoopdeedoo’s and my legs would turn to jello. AND to top it off I had the wrong shoes on to do the job. The tennis shoes I put on, to do yard work in, were slippery on the roof. Early on I took them off and tossed them down to the back deck so that I wouldn’t slip and fall. (Oh, and I did have my cell phone in my back pocket) I am also paying dearly for that too. Even though I sprayed myself all over before starting yard work on Saturday, I am covered in chiggers. :o( For those of you who do not live in the south and don’t know what chiggers are, consider yourself lucky.  They are little microscopic bugs that make you itch. BAD.  They live in the trees and spanish moss.  I think I was ok on the ground but once I got on the roof is when I think I got them. My ankles are covered, I have them on my legs, I lot on my underwear line on both legs and top, and a couple on my torso. Uh huh. Yea, sux to be me now doesn’t it?

And to top it off I couldn’t get off the roof. I had to call one of my friends’ husband (because she didn’t answer her phone or text messages as she was taking a nap) and plead with him to come get me off the roof.  He laughed, and he came to help me down. And while he was there he got up on the roof and finished off what I could not. Lesson learned. NEVER AGAIN WILL I GET UP ON MY ROOF. Now I’m waiting for it to rain so I can be sure that nothing else is going on up there. I’m pretty sure it was the buildup. It was pretty bad.

                                                                 rooftop

My view from almost the peak, looking toward my driveway.

                                                                          backporch leo

My boy, Sunday after I got done cleaning off the back deck of roof debris.  It was kinda funny, while I was up on the roof he was pacing down on the ground looking for me. I had both doors open to the house and he was constantly on the move. I called to him several times but he couldn’t hear where I was calling from and he couldn’t see me up on the roof. I felt sorry for him.

                                                                  milk snake

Another snake. Saturday morning when I was just getting started on the yard work I happened to look down and there was this baby snake. It was chilly, 50’s, so he wasn’t moving too much but I had no clue what this snake was. So I smushed it’s head. Come to find out it’s a milk snake, a non poisonous one. How was I to know? I wasn’t taking any chances. Leo can’t see but he likes to smell them, which he did with this one when I was standing on it’s head. Well, he’s a dead milk snake now. I was on the lookout all day for more. I sure hope Leo doesn’t come upon a rattlesnake while I’m at work. They’re looking for food now to hibernate soon.

                                                                 yarn sleeves

So I thought this was interesting. See that see-through thingy at the top? A while back, I don’t remember when exactly but it’s been quite a while, I started folding the sleeves from the yarn and putting them in this container. I pulled them out Friday night to throw them out and thought I’d see what all I had. These are a lot of the yarns, not all, that I’ve either finished a project with or started and the sleeve fell off. It looked like a lot more when I was sorting them out but now it doesn’t look like much does it?

So that’s it for me for now. Our weather is awesome right now. Not too hot, not cold. Goldilocks weather.   I hope it comes to you soon, where ever you may be.

TTFN
Kat
xoxo                                                              

14 comments:

  1. lol..you sound like me..I do not like to ask for help until I am in a real jam..but I know now it is ok to ask for help. Hope your body starts to mend itself quickly, the older we get the longer it takes..we are not in our 20's anymore :( Y

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    1. Boy, don't you know that it takes a lot longer for our bodies to heal the older we get. It's Wednesday and I am still feeling the affects. The chiggers can last up to a week also and they are driving me mad. The worst are at my underwear line around my legs. How did your show go? Did you go good?

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  2. You one brave gal ... up there on that roof. Glad you didn't get hurt. The aches, pains and chiffers are more then enough. Yuck to the snake ... again you brave girl. I am freaked beyond words when I see one ... ohhhhh, makes me shiver. You take good care, and yes, stay off that roof! Blessings.

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    1. I don't know whether I am brave or dumb Glor! lol. I'm glad I survived it though. :o)

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  3. Oh please be careful up there on the roof Kat. You are scaring me to death. I am so glad your friends husband got you down and then finished the job. You are "grounded" young lady and are not allowed back up there! :)

    Awww Leo looks so cute all asleep in the sunshine. Hugs to him from me. :)

    I am getting the willies just thinking about snakes. I don't like snakes. And I am glad you got that one so he did not mess with my pal Leo!

    Can't wait to see what you hook up next. You have been very busy with all those yarn labels. They look like a lot of me. :)

    Blessings and hugs to you and my pal Leo my dear friend.

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    1. Not to worry Vicki, that is my last time getting up on that roof unless someone else is around. :o)

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  4. Metal roof and barefoot? Your lucky you didn't pick up a nail along with the chiggers. Ha. I had chiggers so many times growing up. Always used calamine lotion to smother them.

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    1. Actually Mike, it was less slippery in my socks alone than it was with my shoes on. It didn't take me long after the first slip to chuck those bad boys off the roof. And the majority of the roof was cooled down when I was up there, it was later in the afternoon. The part that was hot I waited before I tried to tackle that part. I was up there a good 3 hours I think. And there weren't any nails. Thankfully. I actually wished I'd had my caulking gun up there to go around the nails/screws that were popped up. I have a double roof. The original is shingle and the top roof is metal.

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  5. Good Lord Kat - don't do stuff like that when you're alone. As Vikki said "we're not in our 20's anymore". I hope you can get rid of the chiggers quickly. Have a good day. :)

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  6. oh, dear! i have a fear of ladders - not climbing them or heights - it's the getting off and on them! i'd be stranded right up there with you!

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  7. Okay...so when I changed my blog template a couple of weeks ago or longer, I lost every single one of my blogs on my sidebar. I have to manual put those in, so I had to rely on my poor little old brain to get them back on. A few slipped through the cracks, and yours was one of them. Can you believe that? I can't. You are one of my bestest blog buddies! I haven't been ignoring you on purpose, I swear! You are back on my sidebar now where you belong. I find one or two every week that I have forgotten to put back on my list.

    P.S. You are smarter than that!!! STAY OFF THE ROOF, DAMMIT!

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    1. Ha ha....I'm smarter now! I learned that I'm not in my 20's anymore and that 50 something year old women don't belong up on the roof (unless they are fit as a fiddle, which clearly I am not). But ya know what? We had rain last night and no water leaking on the front porch in front of the door. :o)

      I've been wanting to change my blog template but haven't. Good thing I haven't, I'd hate to lose all the blogs on my reading list. I'd never remember all that I had either. I did wonder if I had said something wrong. :o) xo

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  8. Climbing the roof by yourself is really scary, Kat! But, I admire your courage and cleaned the roof on your own. Maybe next time, you should let someone else do it for you, just to be safe. Anyway, how did the cleaning go? Did you find any buildups?



    @Kristopher Diss

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    1. I did find a couple of big build ups Kristopher. And now my roof is good to go for a few more years. It was scary a little but the hardest part was in getting down. And it's funny because now I can hear the acorns hit the roof much better. lol. Like gunshot.

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