As my fellow Grand Valley residents know, yesterday (May 29, 2011) was a windy day. Utah began to move in around 3:00 p.m. and it stuck around into the night. It’s windy today, too, but nothing like it was yesterday. AND, it’s chilly again!

For those of you familiar with my view of Mt. Garfield, this shows how much dirt was in the air.

This shot was taken later when even more dust was in the air. Even later, I couldn’t see St. Mary’s Hospital, which you can see in the distance here.

What I’d planned to be a relaxing and photo-centric weekend turned into something of a bust for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is my inability to plan well and a well-honed ability to get completely distracted.

The highlight of the weekend was the realization that the ladder-in-the-wind noise I had been listening to was not my ladder (left in the entryway for a good day to run water to the swamp cooler). It was instead a section of rain gutter wildly fluttering in the wind above my house. This was cause for much concern. The wind had detached the rain gutter at one end, ripping out a small section of the facing on that eave, had bent up and over the roof, and was hanging on by a few more nails at the other end of the gutter. I could see those remaining nails weren’t likely to hold the rest of the day if the wind continued or intensified. The rolling dirt cloud to the west suggested this wind was going to hang a bit longer. With each irritating gust of wind, it appeared more likely this section of rain gutter was going to detach completely and become a missile of neighborhood destruction (and eventual hostility toward me).

I got on the roof to check it out and realized that there wasn’t much I’d be able to do from there. The wind was blowing that section around in such a manner that I was afraid it’d eventually whack me in the head or rip a chunk out of me if I didn’t get off the roof. I won’t even mention the foolhardiness of being up there in the first place, the wind gusting as it was. But I did lay low when it blew the hardest and moved only when it was calmer.

Once off the roof and assessing the rest of the situation, I thought I’d pull the “free” section toward me and off the roof, then take the nails out of the rest of the gutter and in that way guarantee the neighborhood wouldn’t be in danger of flying house parts—my house parts. It wasn’t long before I realized I didn’t have the strength, or even a sense of safety, to drag that thing toward me and off the roof. Besides, there are windows and a fence I could also destroy in the process of decapitating myself.

So I did what any woman would do in  a similar situation. I cussed, I cried, I bitched vehemently at the wind, and then called my dad. 🙂 He got here pretty quickly. I never call for help, so I think he thought I might need help.

Between the time I lost it and called Dad, and his arrival, I settled down a bit and remembered WHERE “that” rope was, got it, got back on the roof, and tied the rope to the end of that gutter. It had to be done in spurts, coinciding with wind gusts that required I simply hold on tightly to the that twisted hunk of metal so as not to acquire an unwanted piercing.

Dad got here, assessed the situation as it then was, and declared the problem “handled for now.” We visited awhile longer as he continued to talked me further from the “ledge.” Sometimes I guess a gal just needs her dad. He and my brother will help me yank the rain-gutter weapon off the side of my house and off my roof, and I’ll go from there. We have to wait until the wind calms a little further. Does anyone want to hazard a guess when that might be?!

When Dad left, I made a few more adjustments to my knotty work on the roof and in the entry way. I submit these photographs to amuse. The rain gutter went NO further in the wind, but this rope work cracks me up. (Incidentally, that red “rope” on the park bench is a bathrobe tie!)

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As the wind continued to blow items, big and small, across the valley, I amused myself suggesting that if anyone happened to see a length of bent and brown rain gutter fly by, it was mine.

Thanks, this day, goes to the many veterans who gave of themselves in the name of freedom. Happy Memorial Day.