Wednesday

If this is as boring to read as it is to live through, I'm sorry.

My day consisted a few necessary, but tedious tasks. I started out getting a hold of a gutter cleaning service. In the last rain storm, the rain was pouring out over the tops of the gutters. In walking around to check them, I found stuff GROWING out of the back gutters. I'd say it's been a while since they were cleaned.

The guy I called, stopped by and had a good laugh, checking out all the eves. When he started writing wildly with a mechanical pencil, flipping through the pages of his notebook and powering up the calculator, I knew we were in trouble. His partner walked down to the street and started talking on his cell phone. I figure he was calling in reinforcements. Or his wife, to tell her she could go Christmas shopping - he had the expenses covered.

He's coming back Monday and will take care the tree branch and gutters.

Our place backs up to a bluff. There is a hillside, right at the back of the house. There are trees and brush growing on this hill. It is a freeway for raccoons and various critters. This summer the family above us had a geologist come out for an appraisal of the hill's stability. He mentioned that there is one tree that needed some of the lower, western-facing branches should be trimmed. This gutter guy also trims trees. (I didn't ask why.) But most of the debree on our roof covers from that tree. He is going to take down that large branch and that will lessen the risk of it coming down in a storm and will decrease the downhill creep.