After shoveling slushy snow yesterday, the overnight temps plunged to single digitS'. The roof a bakery not far away collapsed this morning. Another snow storm is coming so it's time to clear some of the weight off the flat roofs.

I hate deck roots! Hate 'em! Thru the Summer these large windows in the dinning area and one bedroom look out on what - the underside of this roof. Since the side yard is narrow. I've got a view of the roof and a board fence. Periodically, a squirrel may run across the top of the fence to break the monotony.

Above this nearly flat roof run 3 wires - power from the pole, power back to the shop, and the TV cable . None of the wires are higher than 4' above the roof and one comes down within inches before it shoots across the yard to the shop. The only thing that keeps it from being buried in the 12+ inches of snow has been the movement of the wire in the wind.

So, how interested do you think I am at getting up on that weight-burdened roof with my snow shovel? Well, not very - I've done that before and then replaced the damaged roofing, also. This time, I decided to use the garden rake from a position on the ladder.

I'm fairly comfortable on a ladder, if I can actually climb up there on one. Summers spent on top greenhouse roofs have overcome some of my trepidation.

The rake has a 6' handle. I got it from my old neighbor Axel when he moved. Axel wasn't very tall and I don't know why he had such a long handle on the thing. Axel must be gone now, he was a very elderly man when he moved away, and I never got around to asking him about some of these odd tools that went out in his moving sale.

I managed to take off a good half of the snow and will just rely on my extra bracing with 2 by 4's to handle the remaining load. Then I headed down to the shop.

This property is on a bit of a slope. Shortly after I moved here there was a freak downpour of rain. Water managed to run across this very porous soil and into the carport attached to the shop. I call it a carport altho' I've never seen a car in there. Anyway, I decided I needed to improve drainage so that this wouldn't happen again. Don't want standing water in there on the concrete damaging my bags of potting soil, fertilizer, and additional c..p stacked under that flat roof.

A good supply of bricks really did a nice job for paving in front of the carport. They are the kind with 3 holes in each. Presumably, one could not actually drive across them without damage to the bricks but, like I said, no one is driving in there, anyway.

I've never seen another cloudburst like what occurred 12 years ago, or so. But, we had a lot of slushy snow around here yesterday. Of course, I'd carefully cleared the bricks of any snow by afternoon. This morning, there are a couple of inches of ice on top those "holey" bricks! The ladder and I went down a tangle of limbs and aluminum. I survived with only a bruise. After the salt melts some of that ice - I'll take another shot at getting the ladder up on that carport roof.

I enjoyed our conversation last March on the Megaflood (linked below). With my cleared paths forming "stream beds" and frozen soil beneath - when all this snow starts to go just want you to know that I'll be making my personal contribution to the next Lake Missoula Megaflood!

digitS'

Why don’t you just take the roof down if you don’t like the view? Then you wouldn’t need to rake your roof when it snows.

But I’d say if you weren’t injured very much when you fell down, maybe your bricks were more holy than holey!

Glad your "personal megaflood" probably won’t do too much to contribute to another REAL megaflood! We wouldn’t want you to get washed away to the sea! I wish they’d broadcast that show again. I’d love to see it from the beginning.

I just reread your post on the original thread and your comment about the guy who originally posited the flood theory being disbelieved. I remember when I was in 5th grade and the teacher was telling us that it didn’t matter how much the continents looked like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle on a world map, that that’s how the earth had been created and that there was nothing at all to any theory that the Eastern and Western hemispheres had ever been connected. I just sat there and kept looking at the map in my book and thinking that what he was saying didn’t make ANY sense at all—but I wasn’t about to argue with my PAROCHIAL school teacher! The theory of plate tectonics, of course, was unknown at that time.

And then there’s the recent "discovery" of another VERY old fact—that the earth’s magnetic field reverses. Bet you didn’t know we’re really all living an a great big chocolate covered cherry!

And doesn’t it make you wonder how many other HUGE things there are that we haven’t figured out yet! And why are we so loath to at least seriously consider such theories when they’re put forward by educated people! As recently as 1989 the doctor who proposed the theory that stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria was ridiculed. At least he got the last laugh—when he won a Nobel Prize in ‘05!

What does this all have to do with gardening? Beats me! I guess Digit would have some trouble gardening—or breathing—if another Megaflood ever hit that area. But since another Megaflood is somewhat unlikely—even with Digit’s water contribution, I’m more intimidated by the specter of the Yellowstone Super Volcano! No gardening for a LONG time after that one!

Gonna go! My dizzy brain still isn’t working too well—and all this thinking is making it even dizzier!

Happy gardening—in the best of times, and the worst of times,
Skybird

Stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria? I thought they were caused by kids . . . and wondering how home maintenance is going to get done. Is this something else for me to worry about?!?

The last time I climbed on the carport roof, I was the one taking a picture of the tunnel during the Summer. The last time I felt compelled to climb on that carport roof during the Winter months, I created a pile of snow nearly all the way to the eaves. Perhaps I'm getting too cautious. This shot was taken for insurance purposes.

The parochial schools where I grew up taught that all of the continents were once connected, although I don't remember if they used the term Pangaea for the supercontinent. I just remember that they showed how all the pieces obviously fit together.

I remember reading about the guy who discovered the ulcer causing bacteria. I had an ulcer when I was in high school and they told me all sorts of "facts" about ulcers at that time. A few years ago, I was talking to a doctor who told me that nearly everything they told me about ulcers back then is no longer considered valid.

Thank you for Pangaea! I couldn't think of it! And besides the fact that the parochial schools you're talking about, I think, are a lot more recent than the one I'm talking about---I went to a VERY conservative parochial school!

Glad you don't have an ulcer anymore (you don't, do you?), and at least they'll know what to do with it if you ever do get another one.

Isn't it interesting that we all believe we live in such enlightened times---and compared to days of yore, we do---but can you even try to imagine how backwards future generations are going to think we were!!!

Olde, no longer conservative,
Skybird

There's a 90% chance of snow over the next 24 hours and a bigger storm after that. I can't quite figure out how much snow we already have . . . There seems to be a lot of local variation and I've reached the point in my yard where I'm having real trouble "storing" all this white stuff. Officially, there was over 1" of precipitation in the last storm but there was already plenty of snow on the roof.

1 inch of water on a 1,000 square foot roof (I've read) amounts to over 600 gallons. Well, the deck roof is about 1/3 that size so there was 200 gallons plus about half that much already there . . . 300 gallons x 8.33 pounds = 2,500 pounds!! The carport is larger so . . . 3,000+ pounds!!! This seems an enormous weight to be supported by widely-spaced 4 by 4 posts.

At least we aren't like the family of one of my daughter's friends. Looks to me like every time there's an opportunity, they set fire to their house . . .

digitS'

My front door faces North East, and never gets sun in the winter. The snow never melts on that side of the roof. Every year for the last 7 years, I have been putting up a 100 foot long heating cable in the rain gutter, so I don't end up with some massive, soggy, icicle-packin' 4000 lb overhang that falls and turns the front porch and sidewalk into a hockey rink. Its a major pain to put up, and a major pain to take down, and I haven't even plugged it in for the last 4 years.

So, of course, this year I didn't put it up.