One look at Café Nola's windows and Brandon Barnard knows that spring is in full bloom.

Barnard stood outside the downtown Frederick establishment on a recent Monday and surveyed an empty storefront window with the expert eye of a man who has been washing windows professionally for nearly 15 years.

A hand cart holding the tools of his trade — a 5-gallon orange bucket brimming with soapy water, a squeegee, strip washer, sponge and cloth — was stationed next to him on the sidewalk.

At 9:30a.m., Barnard, a 37-year-old Frederick resident, starts his work-week cleaning the three windows and two glass doors at Café Nola, one of about 120 jobs he has washing windows for businesses around Frederick County.

It's a career he didn't seek, but it meshes perfectly with his need for freedom and flexibility in his work and personal life. As his own boss, Barnard works as much or as little as he wants, five days a week, and is paid by the job, not by the hour. When he recently took two days off to see the Dalai Lama speak in New York City, Barnard simply shifted his work schedule to work through the following weekend.

One day earlier this month, Barnard dipped the long strip washer in and out of a bucket several times, squeezing out excess water with his bare hands and went inside the café. After pulling an empty table and chairs from the wall, he fanned the washer across a window in fluid arcs with his right hand. His left hand held the pivoting squeegee, which he hooked on a black belt fastened around his waist. After wiping the windowsill with a sponge, Barnard paused to greet friends at the café's counter.

Barnard's work is always interrupted by morning rituals of a café, such as deliveries or couples eating breakfast at high, black tables framed by the windows. He doesn't interrupt the flow of business.

Dave Snyder, owner of Café Nola, said the job suits Barnard well, and customers have taken notice of his work.

Barnard said he held a variety of jobs from delivering newspapers as a kid in Gaithersburg to working at McDonald's. At the age of 22, the father of his then-girlfriend taught him everything he knew after 25 years in the business.

"It pretty much fell in my lap," Barnard said, drinking a mocha latte. "I thought, ‘There's no way I can't try this.'"

Barnard hasn't changed the formula he was taught for cleaning glass — 1 ounce of low-sudsing, silicone and glycerin-based soap, water and a shot of ammonia. The silicone acts as a wetting agent, conditions the windows over repeated washings and slows wear on the squeegee, Barnard explained: "Over the course of time, it makes my job easier."

His motto is: Work smart, not hard. And he doesn't sweat the small stuff, such as fingerprints on a glass door he washed only 30 minutes before.

"Most people don't think about it. They don't clean it," he said. Besides, smudges keep him in business.

E-mail Katherine Mullen at kmullen@gazette.net.