Rooftop Madness

So, solar is coming. Yup. Honest, it is.

But before the panels can be installed, we need to prep our metal roof by tightening all the exposed-seam screws, and replacing those that are stripped, and using a special 50-year pliable caulk. Because once those panels are up, we won’t be able to tighten those screws ever again (our roof had a few…um, issues during installation, it seems). And if a screw wriggles loose, water seeps in under the metal, and then…bad things happen.

Husband and I have been dodging rainy days, morning dew, and mid-day heat when we can, climbing onto the roof, and testing/removing/replacing all the screws used on the portions that will get solar panels. It’s pretty time-intensive work, though not too physically demanding. Wet or dew-coated metal roofs are like Slip-N-Slides, just not as fun once you hit the edge and fall off the roof. The heat up there is extreme, and all radiating back up at you. By 10:15 or so, I can no longer touch the metal roof with my bare hand. It’s just burning hot. And we can’t get up there before 8:00-8:30 if there’s been any kind of dew, and not at all if it rained…. So. Yeah. This is taking longer than expected. We have one last section to proof. It’s a smaller section, so we’re hoping it’ll go fast once we can get to it. But this is known as the rainy season for a reason, ya know…

In other garden news: the pineapples are growing nicely, with the one that used to be a bit too shaded by the laurel oaks now glorying in its full sun, and putting on size much more quickly. Inside the lanai, my small potted coffee tree bloomed earlier, and now it boasts about 6 small, green coffee beans–or what I think are coffee beans–where a few flowers had been. Now I’m wondering: how much coffee comes from 6 beans? Wait, I don’t even like coffee! At least the spousal unit does. He’ll have the most premium thimbleful ever if I can get them to ripen.

Over the weekend I took the dog out to do some business around 10pm and found a hummingbird moth going absolutely crazy on the 4-o’clock right beside the “business area.” It completely ignored us (clue #2 that it wasn’t an actual hummingbird, the first being — it was totally dark!). I called spousal unit out to watch. You could see it’s long tongue glisten in the alley light as it slurped up the nectar-y goodness from flower after flower. It’s antennae were hard to see between the poor lighting and the little creatures unceasing motion and speed, but once in a while, I did (clue #3, since yeah, actual hummingbirds don’t have antennae!). There was no way to get a photo of this, sorry. But the link above will show you what they look like. Here’s more information.

Finally, here’s a picture of my lovely Brassolaeliocattleya (Blc) “Rustic Spots” in bloom. Notice that lovely ribbon attached? *blush* I joined the local orchid club last November, and last night took this delicate beauty in for the monthly bloom table–where it won first place in the cattleya category! I’m a complete noob at this orchid stuff, and this was the first time I’d taken in an orchid, so this was a wonderful, wonderful surprise! From impostor syndrome to squee in 4.5 seconds. (Well, okay, I still have impostor syndrome. But the squee was real enough. That’s why I’m sharing it here!)