If you'd have asked me what a roof rake was last week, I wouldn't have had the first clue. That all changed this week. It started when I arrived at work on Tuesday and my mom asked me if I had icicles on my house (remember, I work with my family), and I do, so then she told me how I needed to get the snow off my roof. I gave a half-hearted nod of agreement, then turned to my newspaper. There, on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Metro section was a huge article about how roofs are under attack of the snow and the readership must get the snow off the roof, or else.
Okay, so maybe I'm being a bit dramatic, and perhaps it didn't exactly say that -- but that's how it felt to someone who had never really given much thought to the snow pile-up on her roof before. And to add to the urgency, I was told that all the stores were sold out of these roof rakes.
Ha! How unlikely, I thought. Really? All the stores?
So at lunch time I visited Wal-Mart, Menards, Fleet Farm and even Steins. I was able to find a roof rake extender at Fleet Farm, but that's about it.
Okay, so maybe they really are sold out.
When I got back to work I googled 'roof rake' on my computer. I could order one online, but it might not arrive before Christmas. Darn Holiday!
The more unavaible they were, the more I wanted one! Are you familiar with this feeling?
Since I work in manufacturing, I have shelves full of industrial supply catalogs. I was able to locate one at Grainger Industrial Supply, I'd have it the very next day.
On Wednesday my roof rake arrived, it was fairly simple to assemble, and after dinner I trooped outdoors and pulled snow down from my roof. I didn't expect it to be nearly as enjoyable as it was. Perhaps it's was because the handle was so long (17') and I was reaching up and into places that I couldn't see. Or maybe it was because sometimes I could dislodge huge blocks of snow that would creep slowing down the roof and then crash into a powder of snow as they fell.
In an odd sort of way, I found that removing the snow was kind of like working a puzzle. Only this time it was a puzzle that I didn't want to put back together.
