8 June 2012
The hardest place to
shingle on the west wall, obviously, is under the ramp to the people door. But, clever me designed and installed the
ramp so it would (in theory) be easily removable. Et voila, fifteen minutes and the ramp was
out of the way. By noon the shingles
were on that small section and the ramp was back in place, like it never
happened. Art Tournet, owner of Vermont
Pest Control, arrived just as I was finishing caulking the ramp / door
threshold joint. He spent an hour and
said, yes, the pile of sawdust on the lower level footer was definitely the
work of carpenter ants, but the ants must not have liked the flavor of the oak
beam, ‘cause they had already vacated the premises. GREAT!!!!
Then he said, no ants, no charge.
He told me to apply Bora Care to all the exposed interior wood and I
would never have an ant or termite problem for the life of the shed. Continuing the shingle installation after
lunch, the sky grew ominously dark.
Threw the tarp over the radial arm saw, otherwise battened down the
hatches, and decided that staining shingle butt ends inside the shed was a good
thing to be doing. Sure enough, a few
minutes later a tremendous storm hit, including enough ½″ hail to completely
cover the ground. If you’ve never been
inside a metal roofed shed when ½″ hail is raining down, let me tell you, it’s
VERY LOUD!!!! In the midst of the
deafening deluge, looked out and saw that the tarp had blown completely off the
saw. Oh fudge! Oh fudge, fudge, fudge with double chocolate
and nuts!!!! Threw off the tool belt
(literally) and raced out to recover the saw.
If you’ve never run through a downpour with ½″ hail, let me tell you,
them pellets do sting some. Thoroughly
drenched, butt-head went back to work staining butt ends. Wrapped up work early to go with Lynne &
Perry to the Middlebury Town Hall Theater for the opening night performance of
Jules Massenet’s opera Thaïs. Opera?
Doug? Well, you gotta try
everything (except skydiving) once. The
best part of the show was the pole dancer, actually a VERY strong and very
flexible scantily clad artiste who normally performs with Circus Smirkus. The real reason for attending was that Perry
has spent all of the past three weeks co-building the set, which I wanted to
see and was pretty awesome. Drove back
to Fern Lake in the Ranger in the fog sans dashboard lights, which makes
judging your speed virtually impossible.
Fortunately, there weren’t too many other fools on the road, and they
were probably drunk anyway.
Unfortunately, there is a sound coming from the right front that sounds suspiciously
like the wheel bearings are gone on that wheel.
Can somebody get me some fudge?
Double chocolate with nuts?
