More Winter Craziness

Lots of people around here have icicles like we do.  While they're pretty, as I'm sure you know, they're also pretty awful for gutters and roofs.  We are told this is a very unusual year.  (With 72 inches of snow and counting, I tend to believe it.)  As a result, people are trying all sorts of ways to get the snow off their roofs.  Driving around, it isn't difficult to spot a house with people on the roof shoveling the snow off.  This morning, we even saw some guys up on the roof of an antique store with - and I am totally serious - a snow blower!  The newspaper has an article a few times a week about the problems all this snow is causing.  The worst include a photo of a house or business whose roof (usually a flat roof) has collapsed under the weight of the snow.  So, what to do?  Well, since you asked, the simplest maintenance solution of choice for this problem seems to be  . . . .

. . . . . our newest purchase:  the roof rake.  We had never heard of this device before, but I don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to say they are the hottest product in Connecticut these days.  Yesterday I went to four hardware stores looking for them.  I got the same story at each place:  "Today we got in a shipment of [depending on the store, anywhere from 80-300] and they're all sold out.  But we'll be getting in our next shipment next week."  This morning we went back to the hardware stores to put our name in so we could get one from the upcoming shipment, and we lucked out when one of them told us that they had three that had just become available.  So we snapped one up and came home to endure a shoulder workout like no other.  (Well, Brad did most of it, but having helped a little I can at least attest to the shoulder and upper arm agony involved in using the roof rake.)

The roof rake and the roof raker in action.

A roof with less snow is a beautiful sight to see.

Our snow dog, cheerleader, concerned observer, and icicle eater.  (We were knocking icicles down and you can see that she grabbed a chunk of one and it's between her paws.)