Where There's A Will, There's a Way

My husband is not a fisherman, but he could be.  We have never been hungry enough to go out to the river, bait a hook and sit for hours to catch our dinner.  I realize most people who fish enjoy it for the sport of it and not to survive.  My husband was never very interested.  I was the fisher-person in the family.  When I was a kid, we went fishing all the time.  Come to think of it, we probably did fish for food.  Times were different back then.

The reason I think my husband would be a good fisherman or at least good at casting was proven to me today.  It all started with our Direct TV dish.  How you say?  The past several days we haven't had good TV reception.  At first we could get the lower tier of stations which were two to eleven, but nothing above that.  We have Netflix and Amazon, so we didn't look into the Direct TV problem.  Today with the prospect of being stuck inside due to a major snowstorm and subzero temperatures,  we wanted the TV to see what was going on.  It turns out that the dish was half covered with frozen snow and ice.  Neither of us dared to climb on the roof with all the ice and snow, it wouldn't be a great decision.  I kind of gave up on it and went to the kitchen to do my thing.  I could hear activity in the living room.  The front door opened, then closed, then opened again.  Pretty soon I could hear duct tape ripping and the clanging of metal pipe.  I thought I should investigate.  I found Mike, my husband, was constructing a long pole made out of roof rake poles taped to two long sections of fiberglass chimney cleaning rods and a feather duster.  It was genius, but would it work?

He got the ladder set up against the porch and called me outside to help.  By this time it was -6 degrees and going down.  The sun had started to set, and I was thinking this is a heck of a time to be doing this project. 

He got up on the ladder and I handed him the long pole.  It was a little flimsy so down it came.  We untaped the rods and retaped them down further on the metal pipe.  This gave the pole more rigidity.  He made his first cast and bingo it hit right on.

The snow started falling off the dish with every cast.  He got so good that he was able to brush the duster over the dish.

He couldn't get all of it.  With the melting and refreezing, a small spot was stuck and no amount of coaxing would remove it.  All we could hope for was that there was enough removed to get our signal back.  I dismantled the feather duster off the end of the pole and put the rest in the shed.  My husband put away the ladder, and we went inside.  My fingers were frozen, and I was very happy to get into the warm house whether or not the TV worked.  I turned the television on and there it was, every channel worked.  Our fishing expedition was a success.  Tonight we are expecting more than ten inches of snow.  This dish thing may happen again, but we will be prepared.