And it's going to stay cold the rest of this month. November is not notable for hot weather, so there it is. No "Indian Summer" this year; temperatures went from eighties to fifties in the course of a day.
The yard is littered with leaves and I am hoping Saturday afternoon, the yard will be dry enough to set the mower lower and see how much of the leaves I can mow up instead of raking.
Possibly the roads will be dry enough I can ride my motor scooter a little; I have had very little time in the saddle this year and I miss it. Between rain and road construction, this wasn't a favorable summer for riding.
Of course, the gutters need cleared -- gutter screens would be an excellent idea. Managed to clean them from a ladder instead of from the roof last time, a slightly slower but much safer method. Maybe I'll try that Sunday. It will be colder but the work is active enough to keep warm.
May be of no use, but RE: gutters: I got an 8" table centerpiece decor mirror (Walmart, $4), epoxied it to a large, dished washer with a 1/4-20 nut inside, attached about a 2 1/2" length of double-nutted threaded rod connected to a beam clamp (Lowe's/HD electrical dept.), clamped it to a 24" length of 1/2" EMT, put the EMT in a Wooster Brush F6333 Lock Jaw Tool Holder (amazon, $5) on the end of a painting extension pole, and use it to inspect the gutters without need of a ladder.
ReplyDeleteIf there are leaves to be removed, I duct-tape one end of a 20 ft 2 1/2" shop vac extension hose to the painting pole, tape the other to the leaf blower outlet, and blow the leaves out from ground level in about 4-5 minutes for the whole house. As long as the leaves are dry it works great.
I built the mirror gizmo for use with the gutters, but I've since used it for dozens of remote inspection tasks. My pole extends to 16 feet, so often smaller details in the images in the mirror are hard to see; if a 2nd person is available to hold the pole, a pair of binoculars solves that problem. (The verbal feedback loops between the "mirror operator" and the binocular user often get hysterical - "no, no, the other left...." type of thing).
I'll have to try the shop-vac extension -- though there are always leaves and they're often wet. It's too windy to try to clean the gutters today.
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