A success of a different kind.

While I was out of town, apparently there was a minor windstorm. One of the large branches on my pecan tree snapped off and wound up on the roof (luckily it did not damage the roof but it was hung up over the ridgeline). It also knocked the cap off of the gas vent - meaning, if I didn't get that cap back on, leaves and junk could fall in and clog it up.

I wasn't sure what to do; from the ground the branch looked big and heavy. I asked a colleague if he knew someone I could hire to get the branch down and fix the vent. He didn't know but volunteered to come out if he had time this weekend and do it for me. (He built his own house so he knows how to do such things).

Well, by 4:30 this afternoon I got sick of waiting for him to call, so I decided to try to do it myself. Besides, I wanted to sweep the accumulated catkins from the pecan tree off of the flat part of the roof - both because they're unsightly and over time can build up and damage the roof, and also, I figured if I did wait for my colleague to come out, they could be kind of slippery.

Well, once I got up, I decided the branch didn't look so big. So I crawled up to the ridgeline and managed to unhook it. Well, it was heavier than I expected, but I managed to sort of "roll" it down the steep part of the roof (following it slowly, sliding down on my backside). Once I got it to the flatter part of the roof it was fairly simple to roll it off (except, I had to be very careful - the electrical line connected to the garage is up there, and I wanted to be REALLY sure no side branches hung up on it and snapped it. (In retrospect, it probably would have been smarter to temporarily shut off the house electricity from the breaker box as a precaution. Luckily, I did not need to have done that).

Slowly I got the tree off the roof without snapping the line or damaging the gutter (well, damaging it TOO much). I will admit to saying a few not entirely ladylike words during the process, but I don't think anyone else was around.

But I managed to beat the branch; it is now down off my roof and in my backyard until I can find someone with a chipper who will get rid of it.



See? It's almost 12 feet long and probably 3" in diameter at its base. I couldn't get all of it in the picture.

I took my picture with it (still all grubby and dirty from wrestling with stuff on the roof) partly to show the scale of the branch, but also because, well, I don't hunt or fish so you'll never see me standing next to a big dead elk or holding up a swordfish.

But I can field-dress a tree branch, so there. Not bad for a 40-year-old, somewhat citified, overweight, female college professor.

There was also the matter of replacing the cap to the gas vent - the real concern, as it might rain in the coming week and I have no idea whether rainwater getting into a gas vent is a Bad Thing or not.

I was afraid that the vent cap had sheared off, and replacing it would be involved and that the best I could do was jury-rig something until I got a pro out. So I had gone out this morning and bought a roll of "real" duct tape - the kind that is a metal foil material with a heavy, mastic-like adhesive, not just the silvery-grey fiber tape kind of thing.

The good news is that the cap, though it had been held on by something like caulking, had actually just "popped" off, so it was a simple matter to reseat it over the flange.

But I used the duct tape just to be sure.



The vent got a little bashed up in its fall, but it still does what it needs to. (I did NOT climb back up on the roof for this photo - I went up on the ladder and used, I think for the first time ever, the telephoto function on my camera.)

And yeah, I know, some of you are probably thinking that it's foolhardy to go up on a roof alone. And yeah, it kind of is. But you do what you have to. And if I had fallen off of the steep part of the roof, I would have wound up on the flat part - a fall of only a few feet. (And I probably would have slid down the roof instead - skinning myself up but not doing serious damage).

I figure I probably take comparable risks driving out on the highway; I know I've evaded a few accidents in the past year (thanks to my fast response time) as a result of some other driver yakking on a cell phone. So I figure going up on the roof is a calculated risk; the worst that would be likely to happen would be that I'd inadvertently kick over the ladder going down and be trapped on my roof until one of my neighbors went outside and I could holler to get their attention. (I get off the roof by keeping my center of gravity over the roof - using my upper body strength, which is actually pretty good these days - until I'm sure my feet are firmly on the ladder step below that one where they tell you, "Don't step on this step.")

So, another thing successfully done, along with replacing a wax seal on a toilet and removing large branches that were threatening the power line into my house before an ice storm. I may wind up as a "cowgirl" after all.

Perhaps my next car should be a small pickup truck...