Keeping the Ponies Dry

Planning is the key. When attempting to fit a roofing job between the literal splashes of excitement that Maryland calls weather in the spring, one must carefully plan. That is why Saturday's re-roofing of the neighbor's lean-to barn was hastily rescheduled for Friday. It is also why the bed of my pickup truck contains the former top of said lean-to. I know this sounds more like panicked reaction than planning, but I beg the benefit of the doubt. We planned to get the job done, not when to do it.

When my neighbor saw the forecast, she was able to secure administrative leave and come home. I had procured the required materials earlier that morning. All that was left was to arrange the participation of somebody with even a speck of experience. Enter Jim. My friend. Our savior. He had everything we needed. He was from out of town. He could have shown us a briefcase if we'd asked. He would happily have charged us the moon if this had been a paying job. We had our consultant.

Kate, the owner of the building being re-topped, helped me strip the roof down to plywood. Jim came, saw the stained plywood, and confirmed our suspicion. This roof had leaked. Kate first got the suspicion during a rainstorm when she was standing inside the structure and "water was literally pouring into the room." But it didn't count until we had independent, third-party confirmation. Jim came through again.

In stripping the roof, I carefully removed many of the roofing nails by hitting a crowbar with the heel of my hand. This caused the business end of the crowbar to force the head of the nail up above the rolled roofing material. Then I could professionally apply the slotted bit of the crowbar, placing it over the nail head and prying the nail up until it emerged from the roof and the roofing material. I know. It's all very technical and boring. But I was doing such a nice job of it that I had to mention it. It was painstaking labor and, since I am manly and without conceit, unlike those pansy people who wear gloves when they work, I developed some stunning blisters in no time at all.

Kate was cleaning stalls while all this notable labor was occuring. When she was done, she joined me on the roof and grabbed a handful of the rolled roofing. She ripped it up, nails and all, and wadding it into a rather nasty ball, she threw it to the ground. If you're reading between the lines here, she duplicated about an hour's worth of my labor in roughly ten minutes.

Not to be outdone, when Jim arrived he had a shovel with him. Don't you agree that bringing a shovel to a roofing job is a silly notion? We weren't going to be digging. We were roofing, for Pete's sake. Jim used the square end of the shovel to extract all the nails that were sticking up after Kate ripped the roofing away. Between the two of them, every shred of pride in my efforts was quickly ripped away as well. I was definitely in the presence of professionals.

Jim and I then rolled out the roofing felt. This part would have gone much faster in a structure built with the intent of "being square," but I was one of the two architects of this lean-to and I refuse to be lumped in with the masses. Anybody can build a square building. My approach was more avant garde. Artistic, even. After all, the main idea was to create a structure that would shed water, and ... Never mind.

So, as I was saying, we rolled out the roofing felt and made it look at least a bit like it was properly built. Then we rolled out the asphalt roofing stuff, tarred the seams, and nailed it down. That sounds perfunctory, but accommodating ummm, unique angles, is a bit of a chore. When we had four of the eight rows required to cheat Mother Nature of her access to the stall area, we realized a few things. 1) It is getting colder. 2) It is fixin' to get wetter, too. 3) Before either of these really sets in with a vengeance, it will be far darker as well.

At about that time, Kate, who is a gourmet cook (thus setting the bait to ensnare two men who could happily have been up to no good elsewhere), called from the house to ask when we would be done. I replied that we had three rows of roofing to go. I lied. We had four. But that's not the point. The important point is that I gave an answer that is not an answer. The more important point is this: she did not reply. She wondered, but she didn't ask. And that's cool, because she would have had me. One "What the hell does that mean?" and I would have been on the mat, face contorted in pain, slapping my hand and crying, "Uncle!"

Three rows didn't mean diddly-squat. We'd labored for a couple of hours to get to that point. And that's after we'd sent Kate to the kitchen with an estimate of ninety minutes to complete the work. If we got cold dinner, that was our own fault. One row later and we were out of light. And heat. One row after that and we were out of dry, too. We finished this herculean task as we have finished so many others. We left a bit to do later. It was dark, we were wet, we were chilled, and we were hungry. So after the day was something else entirely, we called it a day. Too silly. But in no time we were off that roof and had our feet and knees under Kate's table enjoying chicken piccata, brown rice with rue, and two lovely salads with chardonnay for everyone. I shudder to think what we'll find when we review our work in the light of day, but for now the lean-to is re-roofed, the workers are satiated, and the ponies are dry. Hurrah for our team!