Ice, ice baby

I once again gave my neighbors and those passers-by on Main Street a site to chuckle at. I was hacking away at ice the other night on the roof.

An icicle four times my width (and that's width, baby) had formed on a corner of the house above our porch. I knew there was trouble because water was running through the porch roof. Time to hack.

So, I spent an hour to two shoveling the roof (more than 2 feet of snow on it) and axing the monster icicle.

The challenge was to cut the icicle so it didn't crash on top of me. That would be bad. I think I chiseled the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt before I was done. I was starting on Crazy Horse when the whole masterpiece collapsed. I did a quick dance step as it slid down the roof and crashed below.

Satisfied and exhausted, I leaned on the ax and looked as all the other ice. I then did what every red-blooded American homeowner would do -- I called a roofer to finish the job.

Jim Selden came out from Ganges and took care of much of the ice. He installed most of our roof and will be doing more work for us this summer. He also taught me some techniques I can use next winter to keep the ice problem under the control. None of them involved axes.

Thought: Icicles are pretty ... until you've had to ax them.