Chim Chimney, Chim Chimney

Good planning dictates that one would clean their chimney before they need the chimney.  We’ve never done this before (the good planning part), we usually wait until the darn chimney doesn’t draw any more and then freeze while My Loving Spouse climbs on the roof and sweeps the chimney.  It is not freezing yet, so it would seem a good time to sweep the chimney, except…My Loving Spouse has just finished recovering from a month-long leg infection.  (We are thrilled and grateful that he does not need two more surgeries on THE Knee and appreciate each and every prayer you sent our way).  Call me crazy, but it didn’t seem to me, that the way to celebrate this was for him to climb up on the roof!  There was some discussion (argument) about who was going up onto the roof to sweep the chimney.  I won the discussion (argument), by pointing out that I was now completely ladder ‘savvy’ after spending all summer on ladders painting the house.

In just minutes, I was scampering up the ladders and onto the roof top.  (All definitions of ‘scampering’ will be defined by the ‘scamper-er’ and any adjustments to the definition of said ‘scampering’ can only be made by other females my age or older who are also willing to ‘scamper’ up ladders as high as these).My Loving Spouse had told me during the discussion (argument),

“You’ll have to stand on the roof”,

but what he meant was, that I’d have to stand on the roof edge!

“Oh, yes, and don’t grab the chimney…some of the bricks are loose.”

Okay…check.  Stand on roof edge… do not grab the only thing around to balance…oh, and yes, it was windy….well, not Ellensburg windy…just breezy.  It was at this point that I started to think about which direction to fall, should I loose my balance.  However, I have learned a lot about ladders this summer, and so I then insisted we add one of our ladders that can collapse over the ridge of the roof.This additional ladder gave me something to stand on and I commenced sweeping…Which is actually hard to do…even if the view is pretty incredible….I’d have to say, that I don’t like chimney sweeping…I don’t feel lucky, (as lucky as can be)…but, it is done!  We can burn the wood stove as the weather cools and commence enjoying fall, and most of all we are grateful.  Grateful that My Loving Spouse will not be down for 6 months with continued surgeries.  As he shared with our church family, the English saying… ‘If you’re upright, you’re all right’.