Weekend update: July 1

Remember the massive poison ivy patch I mentioned a few weeks back? The one that ate a fifth of an old library? The last couple of weekends I sprayed everything I could reach. That killed enough of the plant that this weekend I was able to start cutting the trunks of the plant. Several trunks. And I could see where someone did this before. Maintenance will be required to make sure it all stays gone.Some trunks were still covered with leaves. I sprayed them so I can do more next week. Less than 24 hours later I could see a difference between parts of the plant that had a trunk and the parts that don't. 36 hours and they look really sad.

Is it wrong to gloat over dying weeds?

While doing a Home Depot run I saw that the city had delivered a dumpster for the neighborhood. Not that the person who ordered it told anyone other than the photographer for a local paper. I got the dozen or so bags of debris from my house, threw them in the car, and got back just as the city was coming to take it away. They have this lovely policy of insisting that all neighborhood clean up or clean out efforts be done by lunch time. It's always a rush to get people organized and everything picked up by 12:30 or 1:00. Most people are still having breakfast and starting their day if it's a weekend. To heck with being in the right place to notice it's there and getting furniture from their homes.

Having accomplished that I got back to what I was doing in the first place. That's getting my roof painted white. Most of the overheating upstairs is from the roof heating up and that heat coming through. I've got the insulation guy coming Monday to see what he can do about stopping the heat with spray on insulation. But the white paint will prevent the roof from getting that hot in the first place. And it'll stop my roof from radiating heat to cook the neighborhood and the atmosphere as a whole. Sure, it's like putting out one tiny flame in a gas oven. But mine is at least the third tiny flame in my neighborhood to be put out. Do enough and you have raw chicken. Perhaps the metaphor needs work.

Anyway, it took me an hour and a half to wash the roof. The whole time I kept spraying and respraying the surface so I wouldn't cook up there. You should have seen the steam billow off after that first spray. A lot of loose grit washed off. And some general black ickyness.
Then came the painting. I'm not about to haul five gallons of paint up a ladder. I had to pour it into a small trash can and take it up about a gallon and a half at a time. You'd be amazed at how fast it got bright up there. I was wearing a rather big hat to protect my face. Any sunburn I got that day was reflected up of the roof. But that first coat changes color as it dries. From white to ... to ... I haven't washed my white car in two years and won't let it get rained on despite the fact that I drive it around a dust factory. That color. The car that people write "wash me" on.
You're supposed to be able to do two coats a day. Gotta give it drying time. What I missed was that you shouldn't paint if rain is expected in the next 48 hours. Once I realized that, I finished the last of my first five gallon bucket and called it a day. As fast as the paint was drying I figured I'd be fine. So there's a coat and a half of paint up there. The second coat holds it's color better.
Took me about two and a half hours to do the painting with a push broom looking brush.

Once I got down I started feeling the impact of the sun and work (those debris bags were heavy!). I hauled the hose back around to the alley like it were a pile of mattresses. I cleaned the paint off of everything, showered, and then went shoe shopping. What? My shoes were old and worn when I started all this. Despite all the crud stuck to it I waited until they were painted on to do anything.

Sunday I cowered in the basement trying to avoid the heat and horrible, horrible humidity. I put up peg board, hung tools, and installed a light in the dark part of the basement. I'm putting serious thought into putting a hammock down there for the rest of the summer.