1/14/08 I got a letter from the Washington State Department of Ecology telling me that they will someday begin to work on the water right application that I submitted on February 9, 1999. I failed to mention that application in this journal at the time and I failed to mention a letter from the Department of Ecology dated February 19, 1999 saying that they would attend to my application in the order in which it was received when they begin working on applications in our area. The application was for a greater flow quantity than the permit we already have. Our permit allows a flow rate of .011 cubic feet per minute. The second application was for .05 cubic feet per minute plus an additional quantity for irrigation. Good thing I don't need that water right right away.

1/15-17/08 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

This was a week to remember! The roads were very slick going over the pass so travel was slow. I was stopped at one point near the east portal of the railroad tunnel while road crews cleared an avalanche. I arrived at the property at 2:00. Mike had plowed the driveway halfway to the trailer so I drove right in.

When I got out of the pickup, I looked up at the cabin and immediately saw that my work plans for the week would be drastically changed. I could see that some roof panels had slid off the roof. I got the camera out, went up to investigate, and took some pictures. There was about 8 inches of new wet snow so I made all the trails with just boots.

When I got up to the cabin, I could see that three panels on the eave -- the second through the fourth panel from the edge -- had slid down the roof together and the ends had buried themselves in the snowbank. I went into the trailer and called Curt Pritchard of CP Sheet Metals. I told him what had happened and we talked about the problem. He was surprised that they had pulled loose and slid down like that. He said there would be no way to push the panels back up but I could fasten them down where they are and then cut them off at the roof line. Then I could attach overlapping new panels over the top. We agreed to talk about it more later.

I did quite a bit of snow shoveling. I dug quite a bit of the bank away so I could open the passenger door on the pickup. Then I shoveled the snow off the mixer and I cleared off the back porch which had a big pile of snow on it.

Next I got a light rope and after several tries I managed to throw it over the roof ridge with a short 2x4 tied to the end. Then I managed to work the 2x4 over the edge of the small roof so that it fell to the ground. I would use that to pull big rope over the roof that I would use for my safety rope.

Before I quit for the day, I sanded the surfaces in the loft that were due for another coat of varnish.

On Wednesday morning it was 16 degrees and clear. I was glad that clear weather was predicted for the entire week. I started out by pulling a big rope up over the building and tying each end to a tree. Then I got on my lineman's belt and snapped a tether rope to it. I tied a tautline hitch and two loose half-hitches in the tether around the big rope going over the roof. I could slide the hitches, which were right in front of me, either up or down and then they would hold me. I did my batman walk up the roof keeping the tether tight so there was no slack in the big safety rope. That way, when I fell, I would just hit the roof and stay there held by the rope.

At the lower edge of the roof, the snow was deep and frozen solid so there was good footing. Further up, the snow was only about 5 or 6 inched deep and it was wrinkled up from sliding down earlier. Now, part of that would hold me, but other parts would let go without warning and I would slide down and either fall or catch myself and stay on my feet with my weight being held by my harness. Once I got off the snow and on to the bare roof, the footing was treacherously slippery. It was ice against painted steel. I had a real hard time getting my body up on the ridge. It wasn't too bad until I got close. But when I had to hang on to the rope just inches from the ridge, I was leaning over so far that my feet would slip out from under me and I would fall on my elbows. From this position, after a few tries, I was able to grab the back side of the ridge and pull my body up and over it so I was straddling it.

But then there was no traction whatsoever for my feet or my knees, so I had the choice of sitting right on the ridge or by holding my body up by squeezing my thighs together. I did a combination of both in order to move across the ridge.

Once I was on the ridge, I worked my way across it shoveling the snow off ahead of me as I went. There was a huge lump of snow over the eaves above where the panels had slid off. I got most of this to slide down the other side of the roof so it wouldn't slide over the tarpaper where the panels were gone.

When I had the ridge cleared, I measured how far the panels had slipped down. They had slipped 18 feet. That was further than I had previously thought. That meant that I would need 19 foot panels to cover the space and it won't be easy for me to haul 19 footers in my pickup. Maybe I would have to cover it with six 10 footers. I'll figure that out later.

Next, I worked my way down the tarpaper and gently scraped the snow off of it. The clips were still in place so I had to work around them. By the time I finished it was late in the morning and I could see that the sun was about to shine on the tarpaper. I was hoping it would get warm enough to melt what snow was left and dry the tarpaper off. I took some pictures and then went in for lunch.

After lunch, it was 25 degrees and sunny. With the ice melted on the roof, I had good traction with my rubber soled Sorrell boots so it was a lot easier walking around on the roof. It was still super slick where the snow was, and until I got all the snow off my boots, it was still slick on the bare roof, but otherwise I could walk around not leaning on my safety rope. I still kept it attached, though, and snugged up just in case.

I brought the cordless drill up with me and removed all the clips from the tarpaper. There were two columns of them where the panels were gone. I used the screws I took out of the clips to screw down the tops of the slipped panels to keep them from slipping down any further. I got a close-up view of the damage. Four out of the six screws had pulled right through the sheet metal making 2-inch slots. The two other screws had been pulled out of the OSB and had been dragged down with the panel. It took a huge amount of force to do that.

Then I went down to get screws to put in the tops of all the rest of the roof panels to keep any more from slipping. I also got the camera to take some more pictures. While I was back down on the ground, Bert and Ernie showed up for dog biscuits.

I went back up onto the ridge, which was much easier this time, and put two additional screws in the top of each panel. I couldn't start the screws without pre-punching holes in the metal, so the job was made that much harder. I could see that several more panels looked like they were ready to go. I hoped that these extra screws would be enough.

When I got to the other end of the roof, I saw that two more panels had slipped down about 2 feet. I shoveled a lot of snow out of the way on that end of the ridge so that I could get at those two slipped panels and screw them back down to the roof. I tried shoveling all the snow off that end of the ridge, but there was such a huge lump of it that I couldn't get my safety rope up and over it so that I could get over there to work on it. It was getting too cold and dark and late to do any more so I quit for the night. I went in very sore and tired. I haven't worked that hard in a long time and my body isn't used to it any more.

On Thursday morning it was 24 degrees. I was glad it was warmer. I went back up to the ridge and shoveled all the snow off. There was a huge amount and I was careful that none of the giant blocks that went crashing down the roof didn't grab my safety rope and yank me down off the roof. When all the snow was cleared away, I was able to see that the second panel from the end had also slipped down about 3 inches. The other two panels that had slipped were right next to it so the pattern was the same as on the other end of the roof: the very end panel held fast but the next three, all of them over the eaves, had slipped. I screwed down the end of that last panel and then went back to work on the other side of the roof where the tarpaper was by now completely dry.

I got a 16x20 foot tarp from the pickup and brought it up to the porch where I laid it all out. I folded it twice the long way so I ended up with a 4-ply, 4x20 foot tarp -- just perfect for covering the tarpaper and overlapping the panels below by a couple feet. I rolled the tarp up loosely and then got a 1x2 and cut it somewhat short of 4 feet. I started five screws in the 1x2 and then wrapped it in the rolled up tarp. Then I took a stapler, the cordless drill, and the rolled up tarp up onto the roof. I tied the tarp to the end of the long tether rope that was dangling from my harness and then went up to the ridge.

Once up on the ridge, I hauled the tarp up using the tether rope. I positioned it at the top of the tarpaper and tacked it down with the stapler. I took the 1x2 out and then untied the rope. The tarp started unrolling down the roof but the top was tacked down. Then I positioned the 1x2 across the top of the tarp and screwed it down tight to the roof. That held the tarp in place. The tarp is pretty slippery so I don't think snow will stick to it and pull it loose.

With the top of the tarp held down tight, I got on the tarp on my knees and worked my way down, held by my harness, stapling both sides of the tarp to the roof as I went. At one point I thought I had run out of staples so I felt foolish for not bringing enough up with me. I went back down to the ground, got some more staples, and then discovered that the stapler had just jammed. There were a lot more still in there.

I fixed the jam, put some more staples in my pocket, and went back up on the roof and over to the tarp. I finished the stapling job and took some more pictures.

This description has oversimplified what I actually did. For various reasons, mostly stupid ones, I had to come down off the roof and then go back up again many times. All of it required messing around with my safety rigging, slipping and falling, straining every muscle I own, and generally wearing myself out. By the time I finished, my shins were bruised from falling on the standing ribs of the roof, my fingers were cramped from gripping the rope so much, my ribs were sore from the lineman's belt, my shoulders were sore from shoveling all that snow overhead with one hand, my butt was saddle sore from sitting on that wet cold ridge so much, and I was hungry because I had burned up all my breakfast early on. But I felt good that I had at least got the problem under control and I think I have now prevented what could have been, or could still be, a much worse disaster. I didn't get the slipped panels trimmed off, but I think they will be okay until I can get back and do it later. I think the worst that could happen is that they kink or even break off at the roof line and make a not-so-neat edge. That's assuming that I can make a neat edge with tin snips when I get around to cutting them off myself.

I had my lunch and left for home tired and sore at 12:45. I promptly got stuck trying to back out of that skinny chute Mike had plowed for me. Again I tried the 4WD to no avail and after 25 minutes of work shoveling and spreading sand, I got on the road at 1:10.