Today is Wednesdy, 7th October 2015

Overnight there was a change in the weather. Some gusts of wind occurred and the temperature dropped considerably. This morning I could not see one bit of blue in the sky. Actually, the sun did not come out all morning, and it stayed a cool 20C. Luckily,  it was not too windy anymore either, so we started with our early morning activities soon after breakfast.  We had noticed that our gutters had lots of ‘stuff’ in them. Peter had said that he was keen on cleaning the gutters himself. About four months ago the administration of the Body Cooperative had sent some working people out to clean all the gutters in the complex. But another clean-up wasn’t due for another two months or so, because  we get this service only on a six monthly basis.

With the fire season more or less alleady upon us due to an unprecedentedly very hot early spring, we thought it prudent to clean out the gutters asp. Peter was confident that, with a little bit of help from me, he could do the job. The pictures I took during the procedure show how an 80 year old still can do this kind of a job if need be. We agreed to avoid accidents, it was important to do everything slowly. Peter had a very strong good ladder for the job . So he went very slowly up the ladder and then slowly step by step down again. At that pace it was really a piece of cake. Oh yes, we both thought he had to do it very carefully so as not to miss a step and fall over!

Peter filled up the blue plastic bowl with leaves and sticks, then passed it down to me for emptying into the council’s garden refuse bin.
For shifting the ladder along the gutter, I helped him to secure the ladder with an ancient very hard shell or a concrete tile whenever the floor was a little bit sloping. The silt in the gutter Peter scraped out with a little scraper. I then emptied this soft stuff, which was full of little needles too, I emptied this into our compost bin. Last but not least Peter hosed down every little bit that was still left in the gutter. Peter again had to shift the ladder a number of times to reach down the gutter with the garden hose. I had the task to turn on and off the water.

We like the jungle-like appearance of our little property. But since our backyard is really very small, Peter forever needs to cut things off the trees and bushes; otherwise the jungle would take over completely! 🙂

We are also surrounded by a lot of trees on neighbouring council property. The shade, these trees give, is very welcome on hot days. Unfortunately, this council area, which is totally overgrown with shrubs and trees, might also become a fire hazard on very hot, windy days.

We used to have a meadow like grass area at the side of our house. The grass was very high and looked beautifully green. It had become too high for Peter to mow with his push mover. Once a week a man come to mow the lawns in the body cooperate areas. Peter showed him the other week our patch of grass in our backyard and asked him whether he could mow it for us if we paid him for it. He did it the same day. It didn’t take him very long, and he only asked 20 Dollars for the job.

Since that grass was cut, we had not had any rain, none whatsoever. So I became concerned that this bit of grass that was left to us, might dry out too much. Actually, we are against wasting water on lawns. It must have been years since we used a drop of water on grassy areas. However, I must admit, recently I hosed down that bit of grass area nearly every morning. I tell myself, the water dams in our area are still full. Up until very recently we had always plenty of rain this year. And I’d feel very sorry to see a dried out bare brown patch these coming summer months. I hope our little piece of land is going to green again soon!