Obviously Carla and I are losing some of our drive to update this site regularly. The novelty of blogging has worn off, but a few people have asked for updates and I hate to think of you all getting up every morning and sitting down at your computer with a bowl of Cap’n Crunch, ready to be regaled by tales of construction derring-do, only to be disappointed again and again. Well, today’s your lucky day.
We’ve started shingling, as you may have guessed. Regarding the correct way to nail a shingle so that it can expand and contract freely in the weather, there is some confusion and debate (admittedly most of this debate is in my own head). Most commonly you use two nails, each about halfway up the shingle’s length and an inch or so from the edge. But it was pointed out to me a few years ago that this actually restricts the cedar from expanding when wet and can cause cupping (the expansion forces the center of the shingle away from the wall surface). So what do you do? I still don’t know. We’ve experimented with a few different nailing patterns but the problem seems to have no right or established answer.
Windows remain an annoyance. The replacement glass for the big south-facing unit, which arrived cracked the first time, still hasn’t shown up. On top of that water is getting in around all of the operators. This seemed like a disaster, probably caused by my inexperience at window installation, until the manufacturer told me that those mysterious bits of aluminum that arrived with the order are drip strips and meant to be screwed to the frame cap above each operator. And to think I’d been using them to pry the tops off paint cans.
The Saturday after Hallowe’en, the dregs of a hurricane swept through the province -- if 140kph winds can be called dregs. We were lucky to have already nailed strapping over most of the tar paper joints – those areas we didn’t get to were thoroughly ravaged and had to be re-covered. But really, as long as you don’t lose your electricity, experiencing a storm in the country is actually kind of calming. The pounding rain and wind put me in a deep sleep, and the next day I took a break to drive down to the Mabou Coal Mines beach and look at the massive waves being thrown back from the tail of the storm as it headed off to northern New Brunswick to die.
Next to the beach there’s a long, grassy peninsula edged by high cliffs; I climbed over a fence and headed to the top for better wave-watching. After a few minutes of staring out to sea, I turned around to find a herd of bulls surrounding me. A few horses wandered among them. Behind me was a five-story drop to the beach. I’m badly scared of anything with sharp teeth, claws, hooves or horns, and I have a vague memory of hearing on the radio that, while rare, it’s not unheard of for a person to be trampled by cows. This seemed unlikely for the moment as the animals probably wouldn’t run at a person standing in front of a cliff, but I was certain it would be the logical outcome if I tried to walk through the herd.
After a few minutes, the bulls lost interest in the strange man frozen with terror, and I was able to sneak past them back to the car. But while I was trapped in that pasture I was sure that they would trample and eat me (going carnivore for the special occasion), and no one would ever know what had happened to that city architect building his fancy box out at Hawley’s Hill.
- Geoff
