Rainy Daze

We'd had day after day of rain. Not heavy downpours, but enough to keep the grass growing during the unseasonably warm and wet winter, even leaving a puddle or two on the street. I'd planned on mowing that morning but the sky was leaden with more rain and the already wet grass is difficult to mow, constantly clogging the mower. I decided it could wait.

The sign on the fence is to announce that I'm participating in a city program to fix up houses at no cost to the homeowners if you jump through the right hoops (or even know that the hoops are there). I think it's using state grant money, but I can get rotten wood replaced and get the house pressure cleaned, sealed, and two coats of first quality paint put on at essentially no cost to me as long as I stay there for seven more years as my primary residence and don't sell it. If I sell before the time is up it's pro-rated and due at closing. At this point I'd just had the house tented for termites, a Florida ritual every eight or ten years. A similar program will let me get the roof reshingled. It doesn't leak but the tabs on a number of shingles got broken off from hurricane winds in the last few years. It seems like there are a lot of programs that you suddenly qualify for once you can claim that Social Security is your main source of income.

A few days later the weather dried up, I mowed the lawn, the house was pressure cleaned, the rotted wood around the eaves and soffit removed, and some of it was replaced as some other guys rolled on the first coat of paint. Then the rains returned. The entire job was supposed to be completed this week. Oh well, maybe next week.