Nature v. Home Owner

Yesterday I had a lovely rainy day outing with Carla. We went and saw Juno. I give it two thumbs ups. I really enjoyed it except for the woman/parrot next to me who kept repeating any and many of the funny lines in the movie. When I arrived home I opened the door to find two small spots on the carpet and thought to myself who pissed now (see previous post). But then I looked up and the roof was leaking. Great. I grabbed a couple of bowls and started making some calls. The roof is maybe 4 years old and the roofer is awol. All numbers lead to the wrong the person. Great. I worry about the roof caving in and what the leak is doing to the wood ceiling. Great. The solution is to put out some bigger bowls, turn on TV and pick up my knitting. There is really nothing else I can do until morning when I can get on the roof.





Then...oh about midnight... I hear the sound of rocks hitting the deck (uh-oh) and then a big CRASH! The root ball of dead ivy that has been clinging to the hillside for decades came crashing down and landed on the fence and mostly in my neighbor's yard.

Aside: I grew up in the Valley and ivy is a fact of life. It surrounds you. It's in your front yard and the back yard and it's impossible to kill although it will kill your trees. Just squeezes the life out of them like a big old boa constrictor. But I have never seen ivy just up and die. Well with last year's drought our ivy on the hillside died. I had hopes it was dormant because in my experience you can't kill ivy. I was wrong.

Aside to the aside: Are we allowed to say "drought"? It seems to me that drought is a politically incorrect word. I grew up during a drought. We had water rationing. Turn off the water when you are brushing your teeth. Let the lawn die. If it's yellow let it mellow. If it's brown flush it down. Put a brick in the toilet tank. Short showers. Everyone did it. We even had a gas shortage. There were lines at the gas stations and you could only get gas on even or odd days depending on I think it was your license plate. It is vague as I was young. It was inconvenient but we did it. What the hell is going on these days people? An inconvenient truth...I really get it now as I ponder why we can't call a drought a drought. Who is it that keeps us in this comfortable state of denial? The government? The media? The corporations? Ourselves? Argh! This is all spurred on by the fact that the ivy is dead and has crashed into my back yard.

Back to our regularly scheduled program.

Morning dawns. No rain. That's good. Now I can assess the damage.


There used to be a mass of dead ivy, like the left side of the photo, on the right side.


It hit the fence


and fell into the neighbor's yard and smashed her chair flat.

But First the roof. Remember I bought a new, bigger, blue tarp in order to not have a security breech on my bed. The former tarp/bedspread that smelled like pee now has a new job. I grab the ladder and head up onto the roof. Those Trader Joe shopping bags are also good for hauling bricks up onto the roof to hold down the tarp.


The ladder was a little scary but the new deck looks great.


Here is the aerial view of the mess.

After I took care of the roof, my neighbor Mary and I played pioneer women and start hacking away at the mess.


Here is Mary's pile. We took care of her yard first as it had the biggest mess.



Here is my pile. I went up on the hillside and pulled down another precarious root ball. I figured controlled elimination was better then waiting for it to crash into the back yard. Who knows if the other side will hold. Got my workout and a mud bath to boot!

Some sunshine in the rain.
Here is my finished Tudora scarf.
I finished it last night in my disgust and worry about the leaky roof.


Then I started these Fetching - fingerless gloves.

I was going to do them in the same tweed as the Tudora but that tweed is scratchy as hell. I am using cashmerino aran. I picked up some 10 balls at the Black Knittery sellout. Lucky me. This is the bright spot in my stormy weekend.