March 11th 2008 10:29 am
Need your roof shovelled?
I went for a short walk to get the mail, and when I saw this perfectly normal sign on the board, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe - just maybe - other people who live elsewhere didn’t get to see things like this.
And in case you wondered, we do shovel our roof on occasion. The highest parts slide off pretty good. We even have a special shovel called a roof rake.
You southerners never have to deal with this sort of thing, do you?
10 Comments »
10 Responses to “Need your roof shovelled?”
Daryl Cobranchi on 11 Mar 2008 at 10:57 am #
We have to get the pine straw off our roof and out of our gutters. is that what you’re shoveling, too? I didn’t realize that you had so many pine trees by you.
Piseco on 11 Mar 2008 at 11:45 am #
I grew up in Grand Forks, where my parents’ friends dreamed of running away, driving until they got to a gas station where someone asked them, “What’s that plug hanging out of the front of your car?” and living there instead.
Carrie K. on 11 Mar 2008 at 11:52 am #
Actually, this is the first winter that I’ve had friends who had to shovel their roof, and I saw “roofs” added to sidewalks and driveways on the signs advertising shoveling help.
Todd on 11 Mar 2008 at 12:35 pm #
Nope, we definitely didn’t have to deal with this further south though as a kid I used to make a few bucks shoveling the neighbour’s roof. It was flat so no help from the roof rake (we used that on our own house).
In the south we had different things to deal with. Winters were, in many ways the easy time. Summer was hot, humid, and miserable and all the bugs were out. Ticks, which were around most months were joined by seed ticks - tiny ones the size of a pencil point that you could only get off with masking tape. A freshly mown lawn was not a place to sit comfortably but instead a place to end up picking up a bunch of chiggers which lay eggs under your skin leaving itchy mosquito-bite like things behind. Spring and autumn were milder temperature-wise but the risk of large thunderstorms (along with town-levelling tornados) was present.
Yup - I have to say I prefer the snow…
Kris B on 11 Mar 2008 at 1:01 pm #
Isn’t it funny that what you think is normal or common is a shock to other people? No roof shoveling here. As a matter of fact, the only shoveling I’ve *ever* done is in the ground. Where, in my opinion, a shovel is meant to go. Brr!
Tigger on 11 Mar 2008 at 6:49 pm #
we don’t exactly DEAL with it but that doesn’t mean we don’t HAVE the same problem.
Todd on 11 Mar 2008 at 8:58 pm #
I would just like to note that since I have been in Quebec City I notice that roof shoveling, at least in the old city, is a spectator sport. At least 1-2 people will gather to watch people clearing their roof. The more snow the more people will convene.
Weaver on 12 Mar 2008 at 10:25 am #
this winter, the stores around here were rationing roof rakes. The news was a funny thing to watch
people hearing that store X might have some and lining up in the morning waiting for them to open.
sherry on 12 Mar 2008 at 12:24 pm #
My grandmother was 87 or 88 when she finally stopped climbing out of her second floor window to go out on the roof to shovel it off. And the only reason she stopped doing it was because everyone in the area threatened to call her son, my uncle, to tell him she was out on the roof if she didn’t stop that crap right now. They mentioned that at her funeral and it made us all laugh in the church because she really did hate having to call someone else to come shovel her roof off for her. “It’s such a silly waste of ten dollars, I could do it myself!”
Natalie on 14 Mar 2008 at 2:01 am #
We rake the pine straw and leaves off the roof twice a year to keep the shingles from rotting. When we moved into our two story house, the previous owners left behind a roof rake strapped to the end of a 15-foot-long PVC pipe. I’m not that brave (or insured), so we have hired someone to climb onto the upper tier of the roof with a gas powered leaf blower.
Hmm. Can you blow the snow off the roof with a powerful leaf blower or no?