Ladder

We had more chores to do today. We found out last week that the park has a large stepladder that anyone can use. That's exactly what we needed to reach the area above our main awning where we had noticed some scratches inflicted by passing trees (well, actually, we were passing, not the trees). We have a stepladder, but it's only six feet tall, which is nowhere near enough to reach almost to our over twelve foot roof. So today we took advantage of the pleasant weather to Gel Gloss those pesky scratches. They're still there, but much less visible.

Our other major job was dealing with our dirty patio mat. Black flaky charred bits of sugar cane leaves had floated down from a nearby cane field and landed on the mat. Then it rained, so the ash was wet black smudges on the green mat. When we took the mat up yesterday, we found of course that the bottom was also muddy in patches. We folded the mat over and hung it on our bikes (on the bike rack) to dry.

Today we took it down, intending to somehow hose the mess off of it. We weren't looking forward to that process, because we figured that it would be impossible to keep a wet mat from picking up more crud from the driveway. So first we tried sweeping it off. That helped some. Then we thought of putting it up on the picnic table, piece at a time, so we could spray the spots with Simple Green and wipe it down. That worked really well. When we were done we folded it up and put it away, having no desire to repeat that process.

Our reward after all this work was a shower and a long soak in the hot tub.


We didn't go dancing today, mostly because I've got a sore toe. I was able to walk in my Teva's, so there wasn't any pressure on the toe. I'm hoping by tomorrow evening I'll feel up to dancing again.