In yesterday's post I'd mentioned that I found a few shingles on my driveway; they'd been ripped off by the windstorm. As the wind was relatively calm in the early morning, but was supposed to pick up later, I got the long ladder to look on the roof to see its condition. I don't know whether I've mentioned this yet, but I have a slight case of vertigo. OK, maybe more than slight. When I'm on top of, say, a high spot where there's no railing or nothing from stopping you from falling to your death, I get the weird feeling that gravity is pulling me over the side. At Faranuf, I have problems when I'm on top of Discovery -- or up on Faranuf's roof. The vertigo starts even as I'm climbing the ladder. Short ladders are more ok than long ones -- and the the one to the roof is a long, tall one. When I had Discovery I, there was no ladder bolted to the back as there is in Discovery II, so whenever I had to get on the roof I used a ladder that leaned against the trailer. Whenever I was up top, I had the concern that the ladder would fall, and I'd be stuck on top. I of course never was, but it was always in the back of my mind. It's not as bad since Discovery II has its own ladder, but I still get a touch of vertigo when I'm near the edge of the roof. Since the ladder is longer to get up on Faranuf's roof, the feeling is worse, and the angled pitch of the roof makes it even more so. So I carefully climbed up --
and found I couldn't get beyond the 8th rung. So I had to look up on top and look for damage or loose shingles. And there were --
And this was the east-facing side; the wind was coming from the southwest, so it received the brunt of it. I was thinking I could replace the shingles myself, but with the slope of the roof, and carrying the tools and shingle replacements up to the top -- I know I can't do it, even with help. So I'm checking around here for someone who repairs roofs. Here are the shingles I found on the ground --
The wind did a number on some of our venerable trees, too. In the photo below the branch on the oak tree that's screened by the tree in front of it came crashing down. And unfortunately it just wasn't any old branch -- it had a Great Horned Owl nest on it. According to my friend Helen, the nest had been used since 1988, and birders would, er, "flock" to this area to observe the male and female GHOs and any nesting action. This year, the eggs were about ready to hatch when the nest was thrown to the ground, and the eggs cracked open, killing the pre-hatchings. Thankfully, there are plans afoot here to make a replacement nest, and hopefully the Mr. and Mrs. Great-horned Owl will stick around and not abandon the site.
I thought I'd throw in this view of "downtown" Portal; as you can see it's quite the bustling place during this time of the day --
The fellow in the black truck parks in front of the post office every few weeks and sells tamales and other Hispanic food out of the back of the truck. I've bought pork tamales from him in the past, and this time I got a dozen chili rellenos. I never had chili rellenos even when I was living in San Pedro, where there are dozens of Mexican eateries! And now that I'm out in the so-called "boonies"...
My friend Dodie came over for dinner -- a Blue Apron dish called Cod Kedgeree, which "is a popular breakfast option in England" made of Basmati rice, eggs, cod, frizzled onion and cabbage. De-lish! So the day ended once again with good food, wine, conversation, more wine... :o) And here's another video from my new "critter cam"; it seems like many of the visitors to the water feature are having a problem with sharing it! There's plenty of water to go around...
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