Yeah, I tried the rake. But, because the roof rafters and the ceiling
joists run _parallel_ to the roof ridge, there's only about a 4 inch
space between rafter and joist at the farthest point I can reach. And
that's at least 3 or 4 feet away from the outside wall. (I hope you can
picture this, I've never seen a house with rafters and joists run this
way. Seems stupid.) So I can't really get in there with a rake.

I tried those Owens-Corning Raft-R-Mate polystyrene things, but they
crushed, snagged on roof nails, and fell apart when I tried pushing
them in.

The electric attic fan I'm considering is one of the type that goes
through the roof near the ridge. The soffit vents aren't completely
choked off, just not open enough to allow the ridge vent to work as
it's supposed to, so I'm hoping that the fan would draw most of the air
through the vents and not the house. I assumed the ridge vent should be
blocked because otherwise the fan would only draw in air from the ridge
and not move any other air in the attic.

Thanks for the help, folks,

Shawn