I Love/Hate the Trees (Day 567)

The trees in this area are absolutely beautiful and abundant. We love them. But then again, they really shed a lot of leaves especially in our occasional windstorms, like last week.

I had the afternoon free and noticed that the gutters were overflowing when it rained hard. I knew the answer--they were already full of forest litter, airborne type. The gutters went on the house in Oct. of 2009, which was 7.5 months ago. Out came the big ladder, a 5-gal bucket, and a gutter scoop (hands work just as well, but that's DIRTY). We have about 220 ft of gutters and 5 down spouts. The pine needles (mostly) pile up at the downspouts and clog the gutters. Since they were installed, they've filled up to about 2/3rd full, which means they'd be full to the brim in a year. Scoped out 5-5 gal buckets and hosed out the gutters. Installed downspout filters, which just keep the needles from heading down and filling up the dry wells. Took about 3 hours to do the whole house, plus rinse off the skylights and empty the valleys, which were clogged with needles too. At this rate, I suspect that I better clean them twice a year, once in the late fall when the needles have dropped and again in the late spring when we get some pretty good rains. The pros charge $75 for cleaning, probably $100 for a house this size, so I saved enough for a really nice dinner out. I like this non-paying job.