I always put the burning barrel away on the day I use it because overnight it would rust from the dew. Ashes were dumped into the compost and the bucket of water I keep nearby for just-in-case poured over them to extinguish embers.

The Attic Dek plastic planks are designed to fit either 16" or 24" spaced framed floors, but in a few places in the attic the builders were sloppy and the space is a *little* wider than 24" so the decking won't screw into wood on both sides of the gap. I'll use pieces of 1" thick wood cut to 26" in their place to extend the path. All wood forming a whole deck up there would make it very heavy, but a few here and there is ok. I'm doing this one route across the attic (above the bedroom hall and over the closet and dressing room to the back of the house) because it reaches the point where anything enters the house from the pole at the back. Telephone or cable and the current outdoor TV antenna connect there, and to reach it involves dexterity. I want to add a little support for a clear route across the insulated surface and past all of the heat and cooling ducts.

I found a long piece of TV aerial 300 ohm twin-lead coiled up near the den ceiling; I don't know where it originally was routed into the den, but I can use this to add an antenna port just about anywhere in the house (next to a data port). I'll take a large trash bag with me next trip because there really is a lot of old roofers' and builders' crap that got left up there over the years, making work more difficult and it just looks messy. Yes, you read it here, I'd like my attic to look presentable (that also means I have to organize all of the non-electrical data, telephone, and coaxial wires that run in every direction and constitute a tripping hazard.) And organize the stored large boxes (for speaker and stereo equipment, etc.)

Dorothy's various sheds and the Mill, Charmion's basement, and my attic - places where necessary equipment is housed and sources of occasional amusement and organization. This cleaning in the attic is kind of a treasure hunt - so far I found a hammer, screw-heads for the drill, a couple of boxes of nails, loose cable and spare wire, lots of intact shakes (maybe for a future art project?), metal objects like a solid galvanized ring that went to the now-removed attic vent fan.