Now that the weekend is over, the deluge clears off and the sun comes out… too late to do anything outside now, of course, and everything is soggy underfoot anyway.
What fun we’ve had today – first I had a screaming shrieking hissy over my inablilty to get Front Page (insert sympathy shrieks here) to do what I wanted it to do for the Holy Moly web page. Then at the height of the fit (and the top of my range and volume) the power went out and all the various UPS‘s started beeping and chirping along with me. Which made me scream again, because it’s startling to find yourself suddenly in the dark when you’re already upset and angry with yourself to begin with.
David came running downstairs and I had to calm down enough to say I was okay. I should have said “I’ve totally FUBARed the church web page.”
Then we decided things were bad, possibly very bad, because the sump pump and the ejector pit pumps were both now not running, and it was raining like hell.
I went upstairs to get out of the way, and then David came up a little later to say that we had 4 UPS’s ready to be hooked up to the sump or ejector pumps if needed. Immediate problem sorted, but only temporarily, since we didn’t know how long the power would be out.
That was when I looked out the patio door and saw that yet another gutter was clogged and water was running down the side of the house. This was happening in several locations previously, and we’d been about to decide on a gutter-cleaning service before all the rain started. This gutter was right next to the basement window well, almost directly over the sump pump.
Clearly, it was time to get on a ladder and at least clear the gutters on the first story; something we’ve been putting off. However, this time we got up there and did it and it wasn’t as horrid or scary as we thought. David did most, I climbed up and did a really messy one near the crabtree just to make sure I could do it. Naturally, the one I picked had the most glop in the gutter, so that it wasn’t enough to poke a stick down the drain and clear the blockage. Fortunately, we had a special gutter trowel for just this sort of thing. However, it was very wet and naturally we had to get out and do it while it was raining and not 10 minutes later, when it let up. I could hear some frogs peeping over in the wetland preserve – they’re happy about the weather, apparently. We weren’t.
So now all the lower gutters are clear and running, and the plastic extender tubes are pulled well away from the house so the water drains away from the foundation. The top gutters remain a problem and will be dealt with by the pros – we’re calling them in this week, and also adding leaf guards.
Yuck. I knew we should have been doing this every year, and I don’t think the previous owners had done it for a number of years, either.
After cleaning up and feeling somewhat resigned to a day or more without electric power, I was just finishing up some “powerless” kitchen chores when the fridge started humming purposefully and all the “we’ve been shut off” alarms for various appliances started peeping.
Just like happy little frogs.
Ahhhh – the joys of owning a home! Keep those gutters clear – you could have a real mess come winter. Water can freeze under the roof line and you get leaks…….. remind me to tell you about the hole in the ceiling of the computer room!
Happy gardening!!!!! We have sun today – and hot is just around the corner. I don’t do hot!!!
Tell me about it – there was a lot of ice damming the winter we bought the place, but fortunately they had had no damage. There hasn’t been any since then. However, I worried about it.
But next year, no worries. At least we didn’t have to bail out the sump pump and ejector pit. 😉