Spring Cleaning

Bruce is out front painting the front porch deck as I type. After making a coffee cake first thing this morning, I went up on the roof with my bucket of bleachy-soapy water, a scrub brush, and a rag. It's not that I like going on the roof so much, but I like it more than I like algae on my eaves. Yup--spring green on my lovely white paint. It had to go, and I knew this for a while, but I couldn't do it without Bruce to hold the ladder. Oh how nice it's been to have him around the house to help out with these maintenance chores!

Speaking of which, on Tuesday, we spent ALL DAY working in the yard, more specifically the back yard. All six palm trees needed grooming, both frond pruning, and seed pod removal. Those seeds provide food for rats, and you know how much I hate rats. We own four large garbage cans, not nearly enough for this project so I borrowed FIVE from our neighbor Pete who has a whole slew of them, even though he doesn't do his own yard. Weird.

Three more than what you see are strategically placed to hold the frond pile which the garbage men kindly took yesterday morning. We took yesterday off for the most part--Bruce went into the office, and I ran errands. Today, that easy life was not in the cards.

Lest you think Bruce was not pulling his weight while I scrubbed all the mold, mildew, and dirt off the eaves, he was washing all nine of the large windows in the sunroom, as well as the screens and windows on the back of the house. I worked on both the front, as well as some of the side of the house from my roof top perch, kneeling in the gravel. Good thing I'm a tough old bird.

Then I got the small ladder out to reach the gutters. Have I told you how much I hate gutters. If not, I should have because I do. Around here all they seem to do is collect roof gravel and leaves, plus they get grungy to boot. Getting the smaller ladder out, I started in on the porch area which has all this gross frog poop on the walls and around the front door. You probably wouldn't notice it, but I do. It's like little slash marks, and guess what? They don't scrub off. Bummer. Nevertheless, I've got my scrub brush going on the door lintel, when YIKES!, a gross frog flew out of the top landing on the plant shelf!

I'm a little partial to toads as I mentioned a few posts ago, but frogs--no way! I hate their gripping digits, and pretty much everything about them. See how dirty that plant shelf is? Now you know why I was cleaning! I scooted inside to grab my camera and my phone for a shot. I'm not so great with my phone camera, but I got a shot off, as well as this one with my camera. I was petrified the frog would jump on me! Fortunately that did not occur, instead he leaped to the adjacent wall, a distance of about two feet. Horrible.

The porch furniture got the treatment as well. Can you believe that green carpet, or rather lawn, surrounding it? Seriously, I can't. After all our lawn struggles I'm reveling in the greenness.

Now, this next picture may not look like much to you, but to me, it's fantastic!

Not such a green carpet here, however, it's better than it has been! While Bruce was on the side of the house washing the windows, he decided to do a little work here as well. That clothesline? All new rope. The bricks? All new today! That's a fair amount of digging, moving bricks, etc. If the grass ever fills in, it will be perfect. On the upper left of the photo is where until today I have been storing the pots all my flowers come in from Lowes. No longer are there fifty or so pots, as I finally took them to Lowes for recycling.

You know what? I'm pooped. So is Bruce, so I guess I'll go feed us, and we can take it a little easy before bedtime. In case you are wondering, the porch deck looks super with no sign of the frog! At least for now. :)