Weather Beaten

The weather has been crazy, and chalk it up to living in Vermont, or perhaps global warming, but it sure is strange. We haven't gotten the beautiful, bountiful fluffy white snow that I live for, and it's not looking like we'll get any soon. Instead we're getting the warm/cold cycles that are even worse and make everyone's life difficult. We had a decent snowfall followed by a tropical storm that dropped inches of warm rain, melting all the snow and leaving a swamp in our driveway. Of course, that was followed by windy, freezing cold weather (today will fall into the single digits) that left everything frozen solid and felled trees and power lines all over the area, not to mention the entire Northeast. Total drag.

We didn't lose power but apparently a lot of people did, including our friends. I know what that's like. Luckily we have gallons of water stored in the basement, so at least we can flush our toilets, but hopefully we won't need to use it.

Now that I'm feeling better, I managed to get some maintenance stuff done around the house, but it was a little brutal. Shoveling wet snow is a bear, especially when it's like a swamp. I knew a cold front was moving in, and if it froze solid it would have been a disaster, so I had to get on it. It took a toll on my back, but I managed to clear a path to the wood, bring in a load, and then rake the roof. I've decided to stay on top of that and see if I can avoid icicles... yeah, right.

I noticed that the dormers are badly in need of repair on the trim, and what bums me out the most is that I let it get that far. The trim along the roof on the shed dormer in the back is fried, as well, and some of the clapboards on the south face are rotting. AND, the south face needs to be painted.

Looks like it's going to be a busy Spring/Summer for Fred Lee, and I'm going to try to finish the barn. I did finally manage to clear out some of that rose bush near the kitchen window so I can access the wall, and I didn't have to glop off all of it. It had spread outwards, enough so some of it is left and it still looks intact. Best of all, it no longer causes spray to hit the clapboards, and I can now access them.

Okay, all this home improvement planning makes my head spin. There's so much to do, but I'm into it and looking forward to tackling it. I've been talking a lot of Jim and Homestead Gary, and I'm thinking they'll be a significant part of my Real-Man training team.

My name is Fred Lee, and until the next time, thanks for reading.