These past two weeks I have been working hard at getting the cabin ready for winter. This involves putting the gardens to bed for winter, blowing out the irrigation, raking leaves, emptying the pond, organizing winter vegetable storage, excavating the fire pit (for winter fires), washing windows and decking, and generally putting things away for the winter. Yesterday, I was finally able to get up on the roof to sweep and clean out the eaves troughs.

There is a row of huge spruce trees which grow behind the cabin. All year long they drop their acidic needles onto the roof and into the eaves troughs. Strong winds blow many of these off and onto the ground below. In the fall, I like to get up here and do a very thorough job of cleaning off the roof before the snow comes. This year (pictured above) it wasn’t too bad. Take a look (below) at what I had to tackle last year…!!!

Last year, it took me half a day to clean the roof as I was on my hands and knees prying off large mats of needles and debris with my hands, then sweeping it all off the roof with a push broom. Yesterday was a much lighter, easier job!

I also inspected the mantle. Last year there were large cracks and many smaller cracks in the stone (see picture below). These needed to be filled with high-temperature caulking to prevent water from freezing and then melting and widening the cracks over time, eventually destroying the mantle. Looks like everything is still fine here.
(Last year below.)

It was quite satisfying looking at my nice clean roof and eaves troughs! I had supper and then spent the next hour sweeping the deck while watching the full moon rise.

Miss Lucy was not impressed with my sweeping debris off of the roof and onto her sleeping spot. She kept changing positions but I always managed to find her.

A satisfying day taking care of the cabin. Winter can come anytime now… I’m ready.