I am sooo far behind on this month’s blogs!  I actually recently came back from a vacation out in the Black Hills of South Dakota which had its good points and bad points, but the difficult part was the Verizon Air Card would not work in a number of places we were at.  As a result, I had to capture a bunch of notes in hopes of making posts upon my return… well, I’m back and time to get down to work.

On our way out we headed through Davenport as we trekked up northwards to get around the massive flooding throughout Iowa.  So much flooding, in fact, that they shut down US80 – our planned main route out West.  As we drove through Davenport we started seeing an extremely odd scene.   Granted there has been a lot of rain pouring down up there, but I never expected to see weeds and grass growing out of house gutters.  At first, I figured it was just an abandoned house or something, but a block down I noticed it again, another couple of blocks and there it was again.  I can’t really figure out how this really happens.  Based on the type of shingle there may be some grit building up in the bottom of the gutter and in some situations I could see  a leaf buildup, but I’m entirely sure this is sufficient for plant growth…. and then a mass of seeds needs to be sprinkled on the area to produce the plants/weeds.  I am currently fighting with my new lawn to maintain last year’s seeding – apparently I need to lay down a covering of asphalt and leaves first based on the height of the gutter foliage. 

Then again, it could be another victim of Global Warming propaganda and the homeowners are actually planting grass on their rooftops in order to become GREENER.  Oh, and this just in.. Al Gore’s energy use went up 10% this year.