A Day of Good Plumbers, Shaky Ladders, and Pigeon Poop

My hands are shaking a little. I'm not sure if it's because of the force it took to make the staple gun work (I'm weak), or the fear of using the staple gun at great heights. Maybe both.

But I should start at the beginning. It's been a good work-on-the-house kind of day. It's nice outside after several days of rain, and it's not cold. I got up this morning ready to do house stuff, but soon faced a setback. Almost zero water pressure from the kitchen sink. Lee checked out the pipes, etc., but we couldn't find any visible problem. So I called a plumber we've used before and left a message, already dreading the bill.

Someone called back a little later, and to my surprise, walked me through fixing the problem myself over the phone. Lee was able to fix it, and I couldn't believe they were willing to help us without coming out and charging $100 to do it themselves. I'll be using them again. H.E. Coleman Plumbing. Good folks.

Then Lee and I went to Home Depot and finally bought an extension ladder so we could get on our roof. Leaves have been accumulating in the valley again, and we don't want more leaks. Lee also really wanted to put hardware cloth around our eaves to keep the pigeons away.

I thought it would be fun to get on the roof, so I volunteered to sweep off the leaves. I climbed up the ladder, and about halfway up noticed how shaky it felt and how high up I really was. And once it came time to get off the ladder and onto the roof, I freaked out. It took me a while to get up the nerve, and then I scrambled on the roof and got behind the chimney and held on to it for dear life. How was I going to sweep anything if I had to stay huddled behind the chimney? It was really a lot higher and scarier than it looks in the picture.

After a while, I got up my nerve some more and finally got the limbs and leaves off. I also got a chance to peek into our neighbor's backyard. I confirmed our suspicions that he has a jacuzzi. He also has a hot pink bar with lights on it, some stools, and some rusty patio furniture. Not nearly as impressive as I'd imagined, aside from the hot tub.

After cleaning the roof, Lee and I took turns putting the hardware cloth on the eaves. It was harder than I thought it would be, but I think it'll do the trick. The worst part was that as I stapled the metal to the eaves, I needed to be able to push against the eaves - which were covered in pigeon poop. Isn't that toxic? We'll soon find out.