Thank you, Columbus.

Thank you, Columbus, for "discovering" America so we could have a holiday in your honor, on which day banks are closed so Brad didn't have to work and was able to finish painting the house!  Yes, you read correctly, it's done!  Well, OK, not really DONE, done, but the yellow part is done.  The trim is not quite so done. 

This was the part Brad didn't want to do, and I don't blame him.  The roof on the north side is very mossy and slippery, and the chimney is so high up there.  More praying going on while he was up at the very top!

One sad story:  while he was painting up at the very top of the chimney, Brad saw a small hornet's nest in the corner of the flashing.  He sprayed it with paint and then saw two more what he thought were hornet's nests, so he sprayed them as well.  One of them moved, and it freaked him out so he sprayed it again. He was so nervous about being up so high, and now with the possibility of hornets coming to attack him.  The longer he looked at it, though, he realized a little face was looking at him.  They weren't hornet's nests, but little brown bats.  He felt horrible.  We've been trying to encourage brown bats to come live by us, we even put up bat houses in one of our trees, but they've never come to live in them.  He yelled down to me about it, and then one little bat flew down from the chimney, streaked with yellow.  A few minutes later the other one flew down, also yellow coated.  They flew into the woods, and I really hope they live.  Maybe their yellow fur will blend in with the changing leaves and they'll be safe, if the toxicity of the paint doesn't kill them. 

The (almost) finished product!