Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Respite

A trick of the light this morning. The camera caught this rosy sunrise through a quick flurry. The result - pink snow. Just beautiful!

The weather has been relatively mild for the past few days. A couple of sunny days. A rainy day. Temps in the low 30s. The snow has been shrinking from the top and from the bottom. (Honestly, the ground is not frozen under there! I can still push a sharp stick well into the lawn.) As you can see from the pic, the pots in the garden have re-emerged from the drifts and the 12" of snow has melted off the arbor.

I took the opportunity to work on the monster ice dam next to the front door. It took me several days up on a ladder wanging on it with a small sledge hammer and a hatchet. (Honestly, I really need supervision!) Anyway, yesterday I had at the last holdout - a knot of ice bigger than a bushel basket. It had encased the entire gutter and pulled it half-way out of the house. The downspout had given up days ago.

Eventually I got the ice down, but for the life of me could not get the gutter off so had to hammer it back into the house. The gutter itself is filled solid with ice - kind of like sourdough starter for the next dam. Oh well, Spring is coming. Right? RIGHT?

As for the leak from the bay window - it trickled for 2 days, easily filling a couple of buckets. Then it stopped. Obviously the ice melt over that bumpout found its way off the roof via other routes. When the weather warms I'll climb up there and try to caulk that seam. Meanwhile, in the off chance the seam leaks again, I've strategically rearranged some potted plants in the bay window. When ya get lemons.... ;-D

5 comments:

  1. Yes, my ice jams are damming the water so it backs up and drips into area that I have never had before. I like pink snow.

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  2. Hi Larry. Yep, ice dams have been crazy this year. As for pink snow - it's WAY better than yellow snow. *heh*

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  3. I was afraid that heavy ice was going to take the guttering down.
    You be careful up on ladders in this kind of weather! They will eventually melt on their own. I promise.

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  4. Glenda, thanks for worrying about me. Trouble with that particular ice dam is that the sun never reaches that corner - even in summer. One year a small dam lasted almost to the end of April. Now the weather has turned cold and snowy again and the next dam is already growing. What a winter we're having! I'm going to have to do something about that gutter.

    Stay warm - love your baking posts. :-D

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  5. Oh man, I'm SO afraid of us possibly getting leaks in the house from all the ice that's backed up in the gutters this year. I seriously think we need to look into installing heat cables next year.

    BTW - You COULD pretend the pink snow is actually cherry blossoms falling around you on a nice warm spring day. Right? Nah, even I'm not that imaginative!

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