Roof Installation and Wood Peckers

Hey... Come here baby and I'll show you my red headed wood pecker!! This guy was hanging out at Darrel's place on Friday morning right before we left for the island. He raps on the side of the shed to attract woodpeckers of the female variety... That's the BIRD I'm talking about, not Darrel. I grabbed the long lens and was able to get close enough to get some shots of him.

It turned out to be an amazing day on Friday. At the hottest part it was over 20 degrees. The sun was always behind a thin high overcast. It was PERFECT roofing weather. Wayne showed up around noon and put me to work. We got a bunch of panels installed on Friday before knocking off just as the real thinking part started.

Wayne is a great guy to work with. He's always thinking several steps ahead and generally catches problems well before they occur. Working in such a proactive manner is completely foreign to me. On several I didn't have a clue what he was talking about because he had already moved on to something that wasn't even on my radar. It was very inspiring working with someone who had that sort of mind for on the job planning. I hope that it's something that I can develop with some more experience.

On Friday night we crashed in our place. It had been a full day of work, followed by a visit to a gallery opening and then drinks and laughs at Jules and Ian's. When we got back to our place Rachelle asked if I was going to put up the tarp. I got the weather forecast, which called for no rain, felt the air, which also felt like no rain, consulted with my enthusiasm for climbing the ladder one more time, and decided it was unnecessary.

At 5AM it started to pour. We were under the loft and a section of roof that had sheets of roofing on it, but the rain was falling on the loft, running on the plywood and dripping on one of us. Since I had the Gortex bag, I volunteered to take the drippy spot, and we bagged another 3 hours of sleep before we got up. I'm no longer entrusted with any decision making. Note the dry spot on the floor just around our sleeping bags...


After another full day of work on Saturday we were treated to a fabulous Saturday night Easter dinner at Paul and Lisa's next door. Easter Sunday we got up and went for badly needed coffee. When we got back we discovered our neighbour Paul had seized the opportunity to plant chocolate Easter bunnies all through our house in our absence. They were on our sleeping bags, on the ladder, between tools. It was our first Easter hunt since childhood! Another weekend of work and play.

Later Sunday afternoon we started the wheels turning for the next phase of our rain water collection and septic systems. More about that in another blog entry. It's not your average septic system... no no. This is a brand new system - the first one of its kind. Stay tuned.

OK, you might not think we did much work, but here are the shots to prove that we actually did some roofing.