4/15-17/14 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way I stopped in at Chainsaws+ to pick up my saw but they were closed. It was during normal business hours but there was a note stuck over the window saying "back at 4:00". That was disappointing. I had stopped in on my way home last week and they were closed then too. Next time I'll call before I stop in.

I visited with Uncle Charles on my way through Monroe and I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 1:05. There was still a lot of mud but I decided to try to park in 2wd. I almost got stuck but I was able to get out of the mud and get parked.

Bert and Ernie showed up right away so they got their usual hugs and biscuits without having to climb the hill. I hoisted the flag to half-staff in memory of the victims of the Oso mudslide, built a fire in the stove, had my lunch, and a welcome nap.

When I got up, I went for a walk in the woods. I checked to see how much the snow had melted and I found that most of the sequoia trees were uncovered. I checked each one, straightened up the crumpled nylon sleeves and gently stood the little trees up straight. Next week I am due to measure each one so they have another week to stand up straight on their own.

I took a picture of the OSB on the roof from the ground. I plan to cover it with tarpaper soon and I didn't have any pictures of the installed OSB yet. Next I scrounged around for tar paper and found a part roll in the woodshed and some full rolls under the front porch. I brought the part roll up on the porch, got a bunch of tools ready, and cut four sheets of tar paper. I used the remnant piece of OSB that I had cut out of the first piece as a gauge for cutting the tarpaper. Dumb. I forgot that the remnant was not as wide as the final piece by one rafter space of 16 inches.

Finally, I brought up a night stand from the truck that I had brought with me, and I unloaded a huge amount of yard waste that I had also brought with me. I piled it on the compost pile.

On Wednesday, I rolled up the four pieces of tarpaper that I had cut and tied a small rope around the roll so that I could carry it up to the roof.

After putting on my tennis shoes, I rigged up my harness and tool bucket, and climbed up on the roof carrying the tool bucket and the roll of tarpaper. When I tried to place the first sheet, I discovered that it was way too short so I sent the tarpaper sliding back down and off the roof and I went down and cut four new sheets that were the right size.

Back up on the roof, I discovered that I still needed to do some cutting and fitting of the new sheets to accommodate the stair-step pattern in the repair job. But eventually, I got the tarpaper all stapled down and I was happy with the result. The patch can now stand up to the rain and the OSB will stay dry. There was a light drizzle by the time I finished and it was gratifying to see the water bead up on the tarpaper. When I got down, I took a picture of the job.

After lunch and a nap, I went down to the crawlspace and removed the Styrofoam blocks from the vent openings. There is not much chance of the crawlspace freezing any more this season.

Next I went to work to see if I could straighten the short roof panel which I want to use as the first panel to install. It was bowed up about an inch in the middle when lying on the floor and that needed to be straightened. I remembered Curt Pritchard's advice not to mess around with panels that were bent in any way and get new straight ones instead. But this panel was only bowed slightly and was otherwise pretty straight so I thought I would try to use it anyway.

To keep the standing rib from buckling while I tried to straighten the panel, I clamped a 1x2 on each side of the standing rib using C-clamps every foot or so. Then I laid the panel on the floor and gently stood on the 1x2s. I found that my weight bent the panel down so that it was flat on the floor. But when I got off, the panel sprang right back to being bowed.

So I placed a board under each end of the panel so that I could bend it down beyond flat. After standing on it that way, the bow came out and the panel ended up straight. I was happy with that success and decided that it was going to work after all.

With the panel straightened, I used the tin snips to trim up the rough corners and bend them into the proper shape. The next thing to do was to cut the panel to length and then fashion the ends so that this panel could overlap with the next one below. Since the two panels are the same size, the top one can't nest with the lower one unless the metal is worked so that the panel is narrower where it will overlap. I had done that before when I repaired the roof in 2008 and I knew that I had documented how I did it in this journal.

When I went in for the night, I got out my hard copy of the journal and found the write-up on how I narrowed the panel. I read the write-up and refreshed my memory on the process.

On Thursday morning, I went up onto the roof to prepare for the first roof panel. First I measured for length of the panel including measurements for exactly where the standing rib would overlap the one underneath.

Next I straightened up the raw edge on the existing panel that the new one will have to engage. When the tree hit the roof and tore the panels away, the raw edge of the existing panel got bent over pretty severely. That needed to be bent back up vertically in order to receive the new standing rib.

I first tried to bend the edge up by clamping short 1x2s on either side of it and then using the clamps as levers bending the edge up and over. That didn't work. The edge simply went right back to where it was after I let go.

So I resorted to using a pliers in a fashion recommended by Curt. That is to bend the edge by just a small amount, work all the way down the edge in small bends like that, and then do that over and over many times across the whole strip. If you make any big bends, you stretch the metal and you can't compress it back. But by making only small bends, that doesn't happen. Anyway, I got the raw edge standing up straight like it is supposed to be. The proof will be in the pudding when I go to snapping on the next panel.

The next thing I did while I was still up on the roof was to install four clips over the existing raw edge. The original ones had been removed. They had been bent by the falling tree right along with the raw edge. I installed new clips over the newly straightened raw edge. I also did the trick I had done on the original roof installation of driving in pilot screws across the roof so that when I installed successive panels, I would start the first clip in exactly the right place. That prevents "walking" of the panels, although with only four panels that might not be such a problem. I did it anyway.

Back down on the porch, I used the tin snips and my measurements to cut the newly straightened panel to the proper length. I also got a start on fashioning the overlapping end of the standing rib so that it will go over the panel underneath. Except for shooting scenes for the next video, that was all I got done this week. I left for home at 1:10 happy that I had at least made some progress.

I was a little apprehensive about getting out through the mud and onto the road in 2wd, but after a little slipping and mud-throwing, I made it just fine.

When I got to Skykomish, I stopped and called Chainsaws+ to make sure they would be open. The guy said he would be. When I got there and drove up to park, I saw the proprietor just getting into his pickup. He had just closed up and was about to leave. Fortunately he opened the shop back up and I got my saw and some oil. I'm glad I wasn't 5 minutes later or I would have missed him again.