Pacing Oneself

Yesterday evening, Lisa girded herself for another trip to That Darn Roof. I drove the big mower back to the old house (it's one of the anchor points for the safety rope), she put on her climbing harness, and went up top again. I took the photos below the following morning.

( Lath and Fabric )

After two hours, Lisa was worn out and gave up for the day. Although it's somewhat cooler in the evenings, there's still sun beating down on the roof until nearly 8 PM, and it gets really hot really fast up there. She berated herself for not laying down more fabric and putting down a layer of Gray Goo. I countered by pointing out that the work is hard, stressful, and dangerous, and that she simply can't go quickly or she'll get injured. In this case, slow and safe is far better than quick and dead.

Plan for today is for her to patch the newly-opened hole and to try to get roofing cloth down over the rest of the newly-lathed sections of the roof. If she can somehow get as far as putting down some Gray Goo, that would be a bonus, but I don't expect it to happen today.

As I understand it, Lisa wants to get the new sections completely covered and gooped, then, when they've dried, move the ladders and ropes toward the back of the roof (lined up with the new sections on which she's currently working). Then she should be able to fill in the gap you can see in the pictures above with another sheet of roof fabric, and then goop the area between the front of the house and the current new section. This is still an ambitious goal to accomplish before I leave a week from Saturday, but it does seem like we might be able to do it if the weather stays good and our energy doesn't run out.

Fixing a Hole

After lunch today, and before the worst of the sun hit That Darn Roof, Lisa decided to try and fix the specific hole that opened up yesterday. We first went to the post office, then by the hardware store where we bought what we thought would be a spot fix of roofing compound. However, before going up top, Lisa read the instructions more closely and realized that the asphalt compound wants 30-60 days curing time before you can put an overcoat on it. She set it aside and worked on Plan B. I took the camera with me and documented the process as I stood by at ground level, ready to send up supplies or provide help as directed.

( Even small jobs are big deals when you're ten meters in the air )

By the time she got done with this hole-patching project, the sun had fully hit the roof, so there would be no more work this afternoon. However, we could get a few other things done.

( More Work )

After the post-lunch work — my blood sugar was a quite reasonable and normal 108 — I went back inside and dealt with Day Jobbery for a few hours, while Lisa took the unused asphalt roof patching compound back to the hardware store for a refund.

Maybe we'll get more roof work done this evening once the sun is off the roof again. I'm a little concerned that there are breezes starting to kick up. That will make it much more challenging to lay the roof fabric down.