Relative Something

Whether or not you can stand to read another word about the weather, and regardless the fact I would gladly write about anything else today, weather continues to command all the attention.

Picking up the saga where I recently left off… You may recall I was rushing to get the roof cleaned off in time to take advantage of the impending melt and following rainfall. Since I was hustling to squeeze the task in the limited time available, I was forced to shortcut some of the clean up on the ground. I moved just enough of the snow that had been thrown down from the roof, to allow our cars out of the garage and to make a narrow path to our front door.

It all goes down hill from there. Yeah, the temperatures soared above freezing and then the rain came pouring down. After that, real Minnesota cold set in and temperatures dropped below zero Fahrenheit (-20°C).

While that meltdown should have been exactly what we needed for creating paths to drain any water caught behind the ice dams on the roof, I never imagined that it would cause me to need to call our insurance company for a completely different reason. One of the giant icicles on the corner of the roof broke off and made a direct hit on our brand new air conditioner unit. It was installed in November, and we haven’t even had a chance to use it yet.

When the deep freeze set in, all that snow I shoveled from the roof, but didn’t get around to cleaning up, froze solid on the edge of the sidewalk and driveway. I don’t think I’ll be able to move it until spring.

In the early morning hours of darkness, when the temperatures dip to the lowest extremes, the remaining ice on the roof can fracture with a BOOM of a concussion. The other night, one such BOOM shook the house and woke both Cyndie and me. I heard a crash on the deck below, immediately following. I was sure that some giant chunk of our roof must have broken free and then smashed the deck.

When I checked in the morning, I couldn’t find anything that matched my perception of the sound we had heard. Closer inspection revealed several small pieces of ice on the deck beneath our bedroom. I think things tend to sound a lot worse than they really are, from deep under the covers of your bed, during the pre-dawn hours, in a bleary, just awakened adrenalin rush. I won’t be telling the insurance agent about this one.