Feb 26

The rain falls sideways and freezing my face and hands while above me the red oaks slash through the air. Nervous that I will get hit by a widowmaker, I fiddle through my key ring looking for the one that will get this gate open and me through it and on inside the shop where I have a bag of spoke shavings and plenty of dry wood saved for just such a day. Seamus is home from school sick with a stomach bug and wife is watching him while I work the morning shift. At lunch I’ll relieve her so she can go teach.   

I open the shop going directly to the stove and build a Lincoln log pyre and stuff the base with shavings. Just as I light the fuel and feel the first warmth I hear the clatter of sheet metal. This is not unusual, but this particular crash stretches, screams, and whines like a building is coming down.

I go to the window but can’t see anything through all of the rain.

I load scraps onto the fire as it is now well burning, put on my parka, and go outside to see if the out buildings still stand, The cold and the rain hit me all over again as I make my way around the building tiptoeing around puddles too large to not get soaked if I step in them. All looks fine,  but as I turn to go something catches my eye and I stop and do a doubletake of the sawmill. The lower half of the roof is missing. I hadn’t noticed it before as the roof pitches away from me, but now I had just the right angle, and yes, it was clearly missing.

I have things to do, I think. And this isn’t one of them. Not today. Not in this rain. I’m not even sure where the missing corrugated metal has blown off to. I can’t see it anywhere. 

A muddy reservoir forms below, but I make it through alright. One of my sheets has rolled clear across the yard and is pinned against a lumber stack. The other blew the other way, over the barbed wire fence and against a set of storage buildings my landlord rents out. I am able to make my way over the fence and move the sheet metal through a space between a set of gates. I secure the corrugated sheet metal by placing several 8x8 stringers on top of it. I look at the exposed sawmill and tools and wonder if I shouldn't do the roof repairs now.

 

But there is an old saying from the hills that fill my head.

Only a fool would fix a roof in such a rain. And when it ain’t rainin the roof won’t leak. 

I let this wisdom play about me while imagining the warm fire inside. I head to the shop thinking myself pretty smart considering my feet are defacto wet even though I never did manage to step in a puddle. A fire will do me just fine I think. I return to the stove inside and find that even in my short absence the fire has long since burnt out.