84,000 words. And with a clatter on the roof…

Nope, it's not Christmas, and that wasn't a sledful of reindeer that got me out into the garden. It was Jane with an extension ladder and the determination to actually clean the gutters.

I wasn't about to leave her solo out there, especially with an aluminum ladder and power lines: I'm sure she got tired of hearing, "Watch the power line."

But the gutter was packed with, yes, compost, which we are going to be using on the flowers: half a decade or more of no-cleaning, in which the hemlock...