I was at work a couple days ago, and my wife called to tell me that our chimney blew over. At first, she thought a tree had fallen on the roof, because of the terrible sound. She climbs a ladder, and finds this:


Tried my hand as a brick mason today. The existing mortar had basically degraded to dirt (that's it all over the roof). All the bricks down to roofline were dislodged, and came off:


After about 912 trips up and down the ladder with mortar, I ended up with some kind of impressionist's version of a chimney. The cap had blown to the ground and was bent up pretty bad.



That is admttedly the ugliest chimney I've ever seen. Good thing I don't make my living as a mason!