Scattered Thoughts . . .

I had previously written about painting and weathering the new skirting that I had added to the trolley and mentioned that I wanted to do something about repainting the roof next.  I didn't really care for that molded-in cream with a slight green tint color of the roof (top photo at right).  It definitely appeared rather toy-like to me so I wanted to paint it to change the color to something more realistic.   My plan was to chose a color, mix the paint myself to attain the desired color and then paint the roof.  Upon looking more closely at the roof and some of the details that were installed on the roof, I realized that I would need to remove these details first so I removed the pantograph and then removed the wood plank walkways.  I always knew I wanted to make these plastic walkways appear as though they are wood so I figured I would need to remove them at some point anyway.  I originally wasn't thinking I need to remove them to paint the roof but ...

I had been very slowly recovering from my long-lingering COVID symptoms but things drastically worsened again this past weekend. We had about 13 inches of snow Friday night into Saturday so we had to head outside to at least clear off the roof especially since the snow wasn't supposed to stop falling for another 12 hours or so.  We didn't need a collapsed roof on top of all my health problems so we headed outside for a painful couple of hours.  It turns out we had another three inches of snow through the night on Saturday night after we cleared off the roof so it is good that we took care of the roof when we did. I started up the snowblower and made my way toward the driveway.  I had just broken through the deep snow with one slowblower-width path when it started making a terrible noise.  I noticed that one of the four augers was no longer held in place with its pin.  Fortunately, I had two spares on the control panel of the snowblower so that was a quick fix....

I 've been trying to keep up with moving snow each day this week.  Winter finally arrived here in our neck of the woods and we are finally seeing some snowfall.   The snow this morning is deep and exceptionally heavy.  We're trying to dig out as quickly as we can because Lukey has a state championship hockey game at 1pm today.   Getting to the game depends on two things...  digging out the car...  and my health after digging out...  I've been moving snow almost every day this week.  Most days I've had to move about four inches of mostly light snow.  Yesterday or the day before was about eight inches of snow that needed to be moved...  that is from our driveway, pathways around the house including to the oil tank and gas tank, and removing snow from the roof.  Today was clearly a minimum of 12 inches of wet heavy snow...  more in some spots, less in others.  Most important is removing the snow off the roof when it...

I 've really fallen very far behind in writing blog entries and sharing photos lately due to really lousy health for much of this year.  Well, actually, I've fallen behind due to lousy health through much of the pandemic!  I've honestly lost track of how many times I've had the virus at this point.   Frustratingly inaccurate COVID tests have also clouded my memory of how many times I've actually been very sick.  You need to test about six times before you get a positive result which pretty much renders the tests useless.  While people are testing negative (IF they even have enough of a moral compass to test at all), they are going to work and socializing and spreading the virus even more.  This pandemic has become a bit of a blur of illness, death and nothingness so I honestly can no longer remember how and when I've been sick.  This period from January 2020 to today has been a blur of nothingness.  What I do know for sure is that I've been d...

Yesterday, Sheila helped me install the ridge cap on the play house and outdoor grill kitchen.  Once we had the roof all sealed up, we then tackled some electrical including installing the lighting.  It looks pretty good! Even though we made some noticeable progress yesterday, it was slow going.  First, I needed to remember how to join the ridge cap for intersecting ridges.  Then, I had to cut, then bend, then flash, then install.  This first piece of ridge cap was bent in a way so it could be folded over the adjoining perpendicular ridge.  I also added some flashing that was cut and bent to shape.   Installing was slow going because it was difficult to reach the area where the two ridges meet.  I had to lay across some boards on the roof while Sheila held the step ladder in place.  Plus it was hot up on that metal roof and the sun was blindingly bright reflecting off the new shiny roof! The second piece of ridge cap was al...

Yesterday was a busy day.  I spent the entire day, until dark, installing the new roof over the play house and the new outdoor kitchen/grilling area.  It was definitely a productive day, although, it was a bit frustrating and not necessarily a "good" day. I kept dropping things especially after climbing up a ladder.  Then I'd have to climb down, retrieve what I dropped, then climb back up.  Then I'd drop something else and have to go down and up again.  Then, I'd realize I forgot to bring a tool up with me and have to go down and up again.   The valleys were two difficult areas.  It has been a long time since I built a valley and I've never done it in metal roofing material so it was a bit of a challenge.  I couldn't really get into position well enough to get accurate measurements.  I'd end up measuring twice, sometimes three times, to see if I can get consistent results before cutting.  The angles at which I was viewing the ta...

Before the absolutely crazy and unseasonably warm weather hovering around 60 degrees which has caused a mid-winter mud season this week, we somehow managed to get some snow!  As this snow started slowly inching its way down our metal roof, it slowly changed the profile of our roof... Typically, once that snow hangs off the roof by about a foot, it breaks off and crashes down onto our deck. This time, however, we had some freezing rain before getting this latest 14" of snow so that snow sliding off the metal roof was pretty solid underneath and supported by some ice this time. Within a day or two of inching its way down off the metal roof, the snow from the roof had created a sort of natural awning covering our windows and our front door!  The snow was hanging down so far that it was covering more than half of our front door! That was a lot of snow hanging down in one giant piece! From inside the house, this hanging snow awning looked like a giant frozen wave. ...

This has been a very strange winter. After a little bit of snow the other night, last night the temperature warmed up into the 40s and we had driving, pouring rain all night long. The rain was coming down so hard that it kept me awake most of the night.  Why would rain keep me awake? The back section of our house is covered with a tarp because the roof needs to be replaced... roofing joists as well as the roofing material. It is in bad shape requiring demolition and rebuilding. My health has not really been well enough to tackle this enormous project so we are just waiting for my health and the weather to be in sync so we can repair/rebuild this section of the house. In the meantime, whenever we have heavy rain or heavy snow, I am constantly expecting the worst. As Sheila drove to work this morning, she noticed flooding in all the fields. Actually, the National Weather Service had issued a flash flood warning and the flood stage was in the "Action" stage. Common sense ...