Okay, a friend of mine who is a contractor assures me the robins were not really “attacking” the guttering on our house, but he agreed it was probably a good thing we cleaned out the guttering anyway.

In past years, we have had everything from a colony of bats to a family (several generations, actually) of squirrels living in our roof. Yes, it was nasty. And yes, all the critters are gone now.

So you can imagine I was a bit nervous yesterday morning when Shirley and I went out to the driveway to take her to work and I happened to glance up and see decaying leaves and stuff hanging over the edge of the guttering on the driveway side of our house. As I watched, a cocky little robin flew up and landed in said guttering. He was shuffling and hopping along the guttering as we drove away.

I immediately feared the worst: Bird would peck through the guttering and/or the fascia on the roof. Before the week was over, we would have critters once again living in the roof.

My wife, Shirley, is a much calmer, more mature person than I. She calmed my nerves, came home after work, and climbed the ladder up — waaaaayyyyy uppp! — to the guttering. As I moved the ladder along the roof’s edge and stabilized it below, she climbed up and down and scooped the decaying leaves, dirt, etc., out of the guttering.

(If you’re wondering why SHE climbed the ladder: Our ladder is rated for 200 pounds; I weigh closer to 300. *sigh*)

The story had a happy ending: Immediately after I put the ladder away, Mr. Robin came swooping onto the edge of the guttering. He hopped down into it, rattled around a couple of feet of the guttering, then launched himself into the tree in the backyard. I could swear he showed attitude about the whole thing: “Hmphf! How dare they take away all that stuff! Coulda been a bunch of good worms in there!”

Oh, yeah — no birds, or wives, were injured in the making of this blog post.

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