Bob's Big Home Improvement Project

This is another way that Bob has spent the last week--the one filled with over-90-degree temperatures. At the top of a very high ladder, working on the trim on our house! He had noticed that there was some definite rot going on way up there, so he took the old piece of wood off (cutting it into several sections to get it down), and then he put up new wood. That he carried up just in 2 sections--we were all a little worried about that, but the Lord was protecting him, thankfully!

Nathan, Luke and I were ladder-moving assistants. One person would stand on the bottom rung so we could swing the ladder away from the house without it slipping out on us. Then we would GINGERLY carry it a few feet (praying madly that it wouldn't go out of control and fall, hitting our neighbors' house--yes, the ones that don't like the trampoline!), set it down, hop back on the bottom rung, and carefully lean it back against the house. Whew! Definitely not a one-man job, moving that monster!

The ladder was actually a huge gift from God. We were out walking one evening several weeks ago when we noticed this ladder laying down along the curb outside a house on a different cul-de-sac. This family had just had a bunch of landscaping work done, so we were wondering if maybe the landscaping crew had just left the ladder or something. At the end of the walk, Bob rang the guy's doorbell and just flat-out asked if the ladder was out for the trash (which was going to be collected the next day). The guy said yes, so Bob and the boys took it on back to our house! It's a 40 foot ladder, which would be quite expensive, so we were so incredibly thankful! Most people in our area just hire people to take care of all their outside house stuff, and the man was definitely older, so he probably just decided he was never going up a ladder like that again, so why let it take up space?! Whatever, we are appreciative! Bob has also cleaned out gutters and installed gutter screens over them, which he couldn't do with our old ladder, since we have a two-story with a walk-out basement. Those back gutters are REALLY high! I think we will all breathe a big sigh of relief when we don't need to move the ladder around anymore, though. It's a scary job, an accident waiting to happen!