High and Dry

When Crissy, the lovely lady who runs the Hurley Community Center, read off the list of possible work sites, I had two that I really wanted to do. One was shingling a roof with "a ravine" on one side; the other was digging a ditch in the mud. Since I could rally three other CCMers (Marie, Bebe, and Cecil) around the roof project, I put our name next to that one.

Monday morning, I rose early, along with Marie, for a leisurely breakfast. We woke the rest of the group for morning devotions, packed lunches, and followed a man from Hurley out to our work site. The snow still glisten on the trees like a Christmas card scene, but the air promised enough warmth that I did not throw a coat on over my sweatshirt.

We drove through downtown Hurley (it has one stop sign), past the elementary/middle school, and up the side of a mountain, before we arrived at Sonny and Donna's house. We passed the "End State Maintenance" sign on the way up. The house stands halfway up the side of a mountain, up the road and around a few bends from the closest thing Hurley has to a neighborhood. Up the one side, we could see more mountain. Down the other side, lay the "ravine" -- a nearly vertical drop to the road, then a slightly less steep drop to a creek. Phil, Donna's brother, introduced us to the project : knocking the snow off the roof on the safer side, tearing tar paper off that side, then laying felt and shingles for the whole roof. Phil hinted that we might receive more expert help later on. He also showed us an addition in the process of being built. The frames and the plywood were up, but we might help drywall later on.

First thing we did, we hopped onto the roof. Marie was the first one on, and she warned us, as she knocked snow to the ground, that it was slippery. Bebe and I followed her up. I was glad for my boots; they added traction to the slick roof. I had assumed that, being good with heights, I would be fine clambering about the roof, but the snow grounded me -- and I, like Bebe and Marie, sat on my rear, using my legs and feet to steady me. We rotated out using brooms, rakes, and shovels to knock snow from the roof, and being ground support, handing up tools and holding the ladder. We moved slowly and carefully, always with three points on contact on the roof -- as much as I love heights, I love not falling even more.

After some time on the roof, we cleared the snow, so we went inside to warm up. We stood in front of a space heater, with our wet buns roasting over the kerosene flame until they (literally) steamed. Before all the water had quite steamed out of my jeans, we clamored back up to the roof, this time armed with hammer and crowbars. I had a little-bitty crow-bar. She and I tore up layer after layer of tar paper. Someone had laid down upwards of eight layers of tar paper, all of which had to come up. As did the nails holding it down, although some of them ended up being hammered flat instead.

By the end of the afternoon, we had pulled all the tar paper off the roof -- it was ready for roofing felt and shingles. Since the sun was supposed to be out for a few more days, we left the wood exposed to the air and headed back to the community center. We didn't make it back in time to go hiking up the mountain before dinner, but we made it back in plenty of time for chicken and dumplings.