Do You Want to Go Salmon Fishing?

Posted by Stan Harrington

I normally do not give into blackmail, however, during King Salmon season on the Anchor River, I do take treats seriously! The was the ultimatum that was given to me on Monday morning by my loving wife was, "you will have the house painted before you spend any more time on the river". She was not buying the concept that a house the size of ours, especially in altitude and weird angles takes a long time, serious planning, and King Salmon weekend is just four days away. Sensing that she was not joking around, I immediately went into the planning phase of the project. The priority was finding someone silly enough to climb to the peak of the 25 foot roof and do the painting. This was easily accomplished when my brother showed up for a visit. A half rack of Colorado Coors, he was ready to climb anything!

The next problem to resolve was how to get him off ground level and up into the air other than my eight foot step ladder. One quick phone call resolved that problem, the contractor building a house down the street had went to LA for a few days and just happen to leave some scaffolding at the project site. Surely he would not mind it if we borrowed it in his absence, after all it was just sitting there.

Day #1 consisted of painting the lower portion of the house which could be reached by my eight footer. The late evening involved retrieving the scaffolding and erecting it by flashlight. Day #2, work commenced at first light in painting the front of the house and moving scaffolding several times as well as extending the front deck a couple of feet to accommodate the width of the scaffolding, it is surprising what a couple of 2" x 6"'s perched on top of rocks will do for extending deck edges. With the front completed, the west side finished to nice cedar color it was time to move to the back of the house. From ground level, it is much higher than the front, perhaps an engineering error. One additional load of scaffolding from our absent contractor corrected the problem. Although, the scaffolding felt secure, when you go three high it does have a tendency to feel like it may tip away from the building, especially since it is sitting on a sloping lawn. Although this problem was resolved by tying ropes from the outside edge of the scaffolding, over the roof of the house and tying it off to the t.v. antenna and some silly looking black pipe coming up through my roof. At the end of day #2, the house was completed, the scaffolding torn down and returned to the rightful owner with a day to spare before King Salmon season opens on the river.

FRONT OF HOUSE

BACK OF HOUSE

ALL OSHA REQUIREMENTS MET

INCLUDING "BOB THE BUILDER HARD HAT"

Although, Brother Bill did the majority of the painting. I was so proud of the Golden Granny. She put aside her fears of heights, which was not something Brother Bill gave into without first planning an escape route. The most difficult part of the house was a four foot wall that extends our atrium to the highest pitch of the roof with no access to it. Eyeballing the situation, I determined if we used the scaffolding to reached the bottom of the peak and then used a twenty foot extension ladder we could lay that on the roof for footing. This is the steepest pitch of the roof, for safety, I attached a rope to the top of the ladder that just reached the peak of the roof and then ran the rope down the opposite slope, across the roof of the one story section of the house and into the parking lot to the towing hitch of my Ford F150. Got to give Golden Granny allot of credit, she scaled the pitched ladder to the peak of the roof and then painted her way back down again. I was so proud of her that I took several pictures of her, the reason they are not included is that I forgot to remove the lens cover. She was a trooper, I had to go into to make my radio broadcast when it came time to tear down the scaffolding from the back of the house. Between her and Brother Bill, someone had to volunteer to go back on the very top of the house and remove the safety ropes from the t.v. antenna and stand pipe. She got volunteered and easily sneaked out the bedroom window, and scaled the roof. Now that she has proven herself, perhaps I will no longer have to hang all the Christmas lights. The house is done and I have one extra day to spare before I can go fishing!

This entry was posted on June 7, 2007 at Thursday, June 07, 2007 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

5 comments

Heidi

I almost called "PRATTLE" ...those pictures are real. Poor Uncle Bill you really abuse him. If you would have waited I would have had an excuse to spend more time down there.

6/7/07, 11:29 PM

john r mclay

I would've come down to help in August, as well. Where is the safety harness and lanyards? And, how do you get a redneck over 5 feet off the ground without a snake? (no punchline, as of yet)

6/8/07, 5:43 AM

Sierra

wow grandma is very brave...

6/8/07, 10:21 AM

FishTaxi

kudos to golden granny. not only did she get two brothers to paint her house she gets fish out of the deal.

6/12/07, 12:27 AM

HOMER

I beg to differ that all OSHA standards were met, you have obviously not heard of the CFR's. For you non OSHA compliant folks that stands for Code of Federal Regulations you were in violation of CFR 149.37-22.1 which refers to safety harnesses and lanyards. I am appalled that you would put your brother and Golden Granny in danger for a weekend of fishing. Good job Granny and Blue Duck.

6/12/07, 8:50 PM