LONE WOLF CABIN

Friday morning, 8 AM, the truck shows up with a load of shingles.  The plan was to strip the roof in the morning and get the shingles on the roof at noon, but heck, what are plans for anyway?

The young lad helped we build three platforms out of shingle packs and we offloaded the pallets right onto the roof.  Well at least the ones we could reach.  When the back wheels start lifting off the truck you know that's as far as the boom can go so it's time to start heaving. Dave showed up for the 9 AM start just about then so at least I had some help.  But clearing off the roof before the shingles got there, not this job.

Mic and Blaze showed up a few minutes later and we set about organizing ourselves.  Dave drove the dump truck under the eaves.  There were hastas under there?  Opps.  We loaded up the roof with boxes of nails, compressors, nail guns, tote boxes,a wheelbarrow, shovels, etc until it seemed that there was no roof left uncovered, but we got everything sorted and started on cleaning the old shingles off the roof.

This went well until we hit the old part of the house.  Stan had used boards when he built the original roof, probably ones he had cut on his own sawmill over 40 years ago.  Those roofing nails were in their tight, but with shovels, hammers or crowbars we either pulled them out or hammered them home.  We got the lake side of the main roof cleaned and we left on the double layer of ice sheild and tar paper.  A new single row of ice and water sheild, a row of starter shingles on the edge and we were ready to start shingling.

I was used to the three tab shingles from the last job, but these double layer shingles were another matter.  There was no precut so you knew where to cut off a half tab for staggering your rows so we went with a ten inch cut to give you a shorter shingle.  Lining them up seemed to be a bit of a problem as well as the rows seemed to wave up and down along the length of the roof.  A careful measurement later showed that the while guideline could vary by a quarter of an inch across the length of the shingle.  Luckily the pattern seemed to be "no pattern" so from below it wasn't apparent. Don arrived at about 1 PM (he was working nights) and we had a full crew of 5.  Blaze and I did most of the stripping and prepping, Don and Mic did a lot of cutting and laying, while Dave took care of the fiddly stuff like cutting the shingles for the edge and valley.

It was cold friday, 1C was the high and overcast but no wind to speak of, so conditions were good.  By 7 PM we had finished half of the south lakeside of the roof so we threw a tarp over it just in case it rained (it didn't).  Then we were off the roof, and into the house for lots of Lucy's good cooking.  Those guys sure could drink a lot of beer! I also broke out the new honey flavoured Jack Daniels I had picked up.  Everyone agreed it tasted just fine and could I have another glass please.

Saturday we started, stiff and sore, at 9 AM and went until about 6 PM.  The south side of the house was complete and the main roof on the north side was started with ice sheild, starter shingles and the first row on.  There is a peaked roof on the south side and that got stripped and shingled in a day.  I moved the tractor to that side and lifted the bucket onto the roof.  Two trips and all the shingles were off and gone.  Probably the easiest way to get old shingles done. Again a great meal from Lucy and lots of beer to wash it down.

Monday saw just poor stiff Dave show up about noon.  We worked until about 6 PM with Lucy joining us cutting and laying ridge shingles at the end.  We got the north side of the main roof finished that day.  Just one valley and one peaked roof to finish.  One more easy day with a full crew or a couple of days work for myself. Back to the office on Monday for a well deserved rest.

Glads you say?  Yes I have a gentler side, it's not all he man lumberjack stuff and I am partial to gladiolas.  Last season I planted about 20 and when I dug up the bulbs I got the bulbs back plus about a gazillion corms which are tiny tiny bulbs on the side of the main bulb.  I carefully scraped these off and kept them in an envelope together with the large bulbs in the basement over winter.

About 2 weeks ago Mic and Nicole were up and when Nicole asked for something to do I suggested she plant some of the corms.  Selecting the largest (about the size of your little fingernail) she planted 2 dozen and we covered them with saran wrap and put them on the heated floor and then on a table in the sun.

Here is a picture of the results 2 weeks later.  I counted 12 yesterday and hopefully the rest will come up soon.  A couple of days ago I planted another 2 dozen very small corms.  Hopefully some of those will come up too.

Now to decide where to plant them, a nursery somewhere. Glads and berry bushes.  I wonder what I should plant next?

What do you do when you have a 16 foot sawmill and a 20 foot log to mill?  Why get a sawmill bed extension of course.  And what do you do when the price quote for a 4 foot extension is $450?  Why build your own of course.

And whenever you do that, the first thing you do is head over to Davies to see what he has in his junkyard.  Why these rails from an old bedframs should do nicely!
With my prize in hand I went back home to grind off the rivets to get the legs off and build a nice 6 foot extension.  Having lots of cut lumber I made a frame of 2x6's, drilled big holes in the bed frame and screwed down the rails to the bed.  Having biggish holes allowed me to screw down the rails using large washers and to move the rails to get them perfectly aligned, then tighten.

How to get the extension bed lined up and level? I used some old 2x6 floor joist supports that could be screwed up and down to level the extension and a couple of straps to hold it against the existing bed.  I've run the saw onto the bed extension and it seems to roll smoothly so I'm looking forward to trying it.

While I was there I was delighted to see that the motor started on the second pull.  I found the oil drain plug and drained the old oil.  Time to start the new season with fresh oil in it.  The engine throttle lever broke (just spot welded) so I will have to fix that at some point and the cable was sticking so I removed it, sprayed it with WD40 and reassembled.  Seems to work just fine.

While in tuneup mode I (Dave actually) replaced a leaking fuel line on the tractor, topped up the rad fluid (Mic and I had drained and removed to rad when I took out the shaft to the hydraulic pump that had broken again - did I mention that already?) and found a few grease nipples that looked like they could use a shot or two.

When your shingles remind you of Curley of the Three Stooges, you know it's time for a new roof.  In keeping with my newfound motto of self sufficiency (plus being broke) I've decided to shingle the roof myself (or at least with friends).  In order to learn how to do this and to get a few help credits from friends I decided to pay it forward by helping Dave Murphy on a roofing job of his.  So there I was bright and early at 7 AM watching the delivery truck booming the pallets of shingles onto the roof.  First lesson, get the shingles delivered and put on the roof so you don't have to carry them up.

The first task is to strip the roof of the existing shingles and the best tool for this is a flat bladed, long handled shovel.  With Dave on the shovel lifting the shingles I grabbed a couple of rows and pulled backwards.  This way we were able to take off great swaths of shingles in a bunch and drag them to the roof edge where they were dropped into the back of Dave's dump truck.  A big black garbage can on the roof collected up all the smaller bits and pieces and made dragging to the roof edge easy.  We started on the far side of the roof (other side of the dump truck) so I had to haul uphill.  The front side went much easier and quicker.

Next step is to sweep down all the residue off the plywood, either pull up or pound down any roofing nails sticking up and inspecting the plywood for rot.  This roof had to have the thinnest plywood on it which buckled and cracked each time we stepped off a rafter but there was no rot to deal with.

Next you lay down a roll of ice and water shield along the roof edge and then comes a row of starter shingles (shingles installed upside down) 1/2 inch over the bottom edge and along the roof sides.  This is when Don showed up so then you start laying down courses of shingles, two or four at a time (we did 2).  You have to cut a tab on the first shingle of every second course as you go along so that your edges fall on a shingle below, not at the edge.  Using a nail gun is quick and easy.  I can't imagine pounding in nails by hand. Once to the far end of the roof, lay the last shingle over the edge, score the edge with your knife, take it back, flip the shingle over, use a straight edge to make a straight line and score the backside.  Crease the shingle until it breaks and then replace and nail it down.  Voila you have finished a course, now repeat until you reach the top of the roof. Actually you have to stop whenever you hit a chimney, pipe, etc and that is where Dave's expertise come in as he cut and glued shingles around the obstruction so Don and I could continue laying shingles.  Actually putting down and nailing shingles is the easiest part.

After a day and a half of this I figured I was ready to lead a crew and with Dave at Owls Nest to help with the difficult parts I feel pretty confident it will go well.  I have a gang of 4-5 lined up for next weekend so we will see.