10/14-16/08 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

The drive over was spectacular. The leaves were just about at their peak of color and the weather was perfect with new snow on the mountains and a clear blue sky. I arrived at 12:50. Bert and Ernie greeted me and I gave them each a pig's ear. After lunch, I moved an antique hope chest I had brought with me up to the cabin. I used a hand truck to get it up there and I rigged up a pulley system to hoist it up into the loft. It will provide a nice mouse-proof storage box for things just in case another mouse gets in the cabin some day.

I also brought a barrel of yard waste with me that I dumped on the compost pile. Then I went to work and set up the extension ladder and lashed it down. As I rigged myself up with my safety harness, I also put on a new pair of knee pads I had bought. I figured they would help in two ways. One was to protect my knees from the kneeling, but the other was to help keep me from slipping. The rubber soles of my shoes don't slip too much on the roof, but the cloth of my pants over my knees are super slippery on the roof. So when I put any weight on my knees at all, I immediately tend to slip off the roof. The kneepads have a rubber surface and I figured they would help keep me from slipping.

I went up on the roof and removed the screws from the top of the 5th panel from the northeast side. That panel had slipped a half-inch and I wanted to beat it back. The kneepads made a big difference both in comfort and in preventing slipping while I was taking out the screws.

I came back down from the roof, got a 2x4 and a big hammer, and successfully beat the panel back the half-inch. That made all the panels even again along the eave. I went back up on the roof for a second time but this time I went to the other side and measured the length for the big panels. The new panels were cut to 18' 6" and I wanted to figure out exactly how much overlap there was going to be so I would know how much metal at the end of the panel to bend to fit inside the overlap. I need to bend nine inches.

Those two trips up and down the roof stressed my legs enough so that when I walked down the roadway, my legs felt rubbery and about to collapse. I think I am getting almost too old to work on the roof any more. I'd better take it easy.

I fed Charlie the chipmunk a few peanuts and then I decided to do a little checking on the sequoia trees. I really didn't feel like going back up on the roof. Many of the leaves had already fallen so it was pretty easy to see in the woods. I didn't plan to do a comprehensive check of the trees, but I was curious to see how they did over the summer. I found five or six of the trees and they were all in pretty good shape with quite a bit of new growth. They look like they will make it through the winter just fine. I can imagine a nice grove of huge sequoias in there in a couple hundred years or so. The gray jays found me in the woods and came down for peanuts.

On Wednesday I went up on the roof and measured for the third small panel piece that I needed. Then I came back down and fabricated that piece, getting a little better at bending the metal. Then I went back up on the roof to screw down the long panel that I had beaten back. I used a fat punch that I think is a center punch to dent the metal prior to driving the screws in. The screws I decided to use are meant for a countersunk hole so my thinking was that they would grip the roof better if the metal were depressed to receive the screws. After I had punched the dents, I squeezed a drop of Vulkum caulking into each dent. Then I started driving the screws in and the Vulkum sealed them up good.

Unfortunately on about the fourth screw, the bit broke and I didn't have any others with me. So, I had to make another trip back off the roof, get some more bits, and climb back up to finish driving the screws. It is those trips up and down the roof, as well as the kneeling, that is so hard on my legs. I have to use an unusual combination of muscles to prepare for, and to counteract the slipping that would happen frequently and unexpectedly. My knees were wobbly and rubbery again when I went in for lunch.

Earl called on the phone while I was having lunch. He wanted some advice on how to scribe logs in order to rip them with a chainsaw. I described my method to him.

After lunch, I decided to change shoes to see if the traction might be better. I had been using an old pair of shoes that I thought had the same soles as my Denali street shoes. But I think the rubber was less live as a result of age in the old shoes. In any case, the Denali shoes provided much better traction. It was noticeably easier and more comfortable to walk on the roof. I was glad to figure that out because now I am sure I will be able to do the job without my legs giving out completely. It was almost fun to go back up and work.

I installed the three short panels and screwed them down. The last one presented a special challenge because the raw edge of it needs to be squeezed down under the panel that is already in place with its clips. In the normal installation, the raw edge just lies flat on the roof as you snap the other rib in first, and then the clips are installed and finally the next panel goes over the clips and the raw edge.

I had been wondering how to get that raw edge under the clips and the other panel. Curt didn't have any experience doing it and couldn't give me any advice. I had thought of cutting a slit on the standing rib below where the new panel would end, inserting the top of the new panel in this slit, and then driving the panel the full length up under the rib. Curt was skeptical that this would work when I suggested it to him, and now I could see that it would be completely unworkable.

What did work was to use a nail puller, the short right-angle crowbar type, to get under the top of the existing rib and pull it up and off the clips. Then with the nail puller holding the rib up a little bit, the new panel is placed at 90 degrees, sticking straight up with its raw edge against the existing rib and with the top of the raw edge stuffed under the rib where the nail puller is holding it up. Then, by tapping the panel from its underside, the raw edge can be gradually forced under the existing rib, starting at the top, until it is under the entire length.

The end of the panel, where it is bent to narrow it, presents a tricky problem. At first I couldn't get that part of the raw edge to go under the rib without the rest of it slipping back out. I ended up giving up on my first try and taking the panel back down and re-working the metal.

I trimmed the top of the raw edge so that it was straighter and a little bit shorter. Then I went back up on the roof and tried again. This time it seemed pretty easy to force the raw edge under the existing rib, again with the panel perpendicular to the roof. With the raw edge under for the entire length, I then began pushing the panel over in order to get it to lie down flat. The idea was for the raw edge, which was starting out lying flat on the roof, to turn up 90 degrees and go up into the clips and the existing rib, while the rest of the panel went down the 90 degrees to lie flat on the roof.

At first the raw edge didn't move at all, but I found that by using a 2x4 and a hammer to gently beat the panel either up or down, all the while trying to force the panel to lie down flat, the extra vibration and movement made the raw edge wiggle up and snap into place. When it did that, I was greatly relieved. At least I had proved the concept. Getting an 18-footer to do that will be a bigger problem than getting this 2-footer down, but at least I know it is possible.

With the raw edge down and the panel lying flat on the roof, it was a piece of cake to snap down the standing rib over the existing raw edge and clips on the other side. That is simply the normal way of installing the panels so it presented no problems.

Needless to say, I was greatly relieved to have gotten that side of the roof completely repaired. By count, that is half of the job. I have the same number of panels to fix on the other side; they are just nine times as long. I was also happy that my legs were much less stressed as a result of the better shoes, and my knees felt better because of the kneepads.

To help me celebrate my success, the family of four gray jays visited me while I was standing near the ridge of the roof and they all ate out of my hand. They seemed a little puzzled that I was up in their territory, up near the sky, but they took their treats anyway. It was fun. Charlie the chipmunk was waiting for me at the bottom and he helped me celebrate my success too.

On Thursday morning it was raining. My legs and knees were pretty stiff and sore. I went up to the cabin and carried the three new roof panels up onto the porch to store them out of the rain. I decided to do the metal work on them up there and I figured I would get them up onto the roof by staging them from the porch.

Then I decided it was time to winterize the trailer. I got my anti-freeze IV bottle from the crawl space and proceeded to go through the winterizing process. Everything was going fine until I turned on the hot water taps expecting antifreeze to run out. Nothing came out.

After doing a little thinking and a little checking, I discovered that when I installed the new water heater, I had installed one of the bypass valves backward. It worked OK when the valve was turned for normal use, but it shut the line off completely when it was turned to the bypass position.

I got my wrenches out, undid the plumbing, and re-installed the valve correctly. Then the anti-freeze came out of the hot water taps like it was supposed to, and I finished up the winterizing job. Charlie visited me down at the trailer for peanuts during the work. I left for home early, at 11:00, in order to be in time for an appointment in Seattle.