Post Snowpocalypse Maintenance

For those who may not have experienced three feet of snow on their roof, there are aftereffects.  The snow starts to melt, and slides, and fills the gutters, and melts and refreezes, creating ice dams.

A homeowner can ignore these, hoping the weak winter sun will melt it properly so it does no damage, but that’s dumb, because it’s still in the 20s at night, so there’s no “proper” melting possible.

So today, to prevent major roof damage, my heroic husband went up and cleared part of the roof, then emptied the front gutter (the one on the side of the house away from afternoon sun—the back of the house didn’t have ice dams).  Here’s some of what he pulled out:




And, after working for two hours on the roof (up and down the ladder, chiseling at the ice, pulling two-foot-long chunks out and tossing them), he helped Number Two finish building this:


That fort is built with probably half the ice chunks, chinked with snow like a log cabin. Pretty cool, huh?

Me? I did grocery shopping, client work, committee work, and dinner. I’m such a good little housewife. *sigh*