Twirly Bird Craziness!

Annoyed...no, that's not strong enough. Angry....well maybe that's too strong. Frustrated...that might be more like it. This year our backyard is COVERED in twirly birds. For those of you who don't know what a twirly bird is well that's what we call maple tree seeds. (Not sure where the name came from or if I just made it up.) Anyway, after last week, we have SOOOO many of those little, what will soon become, weeds in our yard, garden, flower boxes and landscaped areas. So now I have to decide if I want to pick them up or just get the Shopvac out and seriously go to town on the back yard not caring what gets sucked up along the way. I've also had the pleasure of cleaning out the gutters, which is really fun if you're sometimes clumsy and accident prone, like myself.

This is the scene of the accident...the one where I break my leg and possibly my arm too. As you can see the ladder doesn't actually get you right up to the gutter so you have to stand on the very top (kids don't try this at home) to get the twirly birds out. Which is EXTREMELY dangerous and a super bad idea - not to mention there are warning signs all over the latter telling me not to do it. BUT I did it and thankfully I didn't actually break my leg or my arm. I was just freaked out and clinging to the roof the whole time. So at this point you might be wondering why I was doing this instead of my super agile and coordinated husband. Well...he was at work and it was supposed to rain pretty hard that afternoon. And well, the last time our gutters overflowed, the water washed all the mulch in my landscaped boxes out into the yard, AND my wonderful husband decided that he had to go out in the storm, with lighting i might add, and clean the gutters out so the rain wasn't overflowing them. So to prevent my hubby from getting struck my lighting or knocked off the roof by hail or strong winds, I decided that maybe I should just handle it. So this is why I now hate twirly birds and will be reminding myself that should I lose my mind and decide to plant a maple tree. Oh and by the way, we are going to start pricing gutter guards. :)