more roofing and rendering....

Today the weather was gentle and we continued with the project, the seemingly endless project of roofing and rendering. 

This post will be short as my body aches after eight hours of rendering. In particular, my right hand feels like it will never again work properly. We're almost there...though what I actually mean is that we almost have the first layer of external render complete. We are tantalisingly close to this first goal. Regardless, completing the first layer will feel good. And I am told, that we have new friends in the area conscripting crews to come help us with further rendering. Oh what relief. Oh what kind generosity! I'm feeling pretty decisively that next time around we do whatever we need to do in oder that we can use Frank's render pump. While the slow, quiet and rhythmic pace of hand rendering is pretty delightful. The sheer physicality of it makes me feel happy at the possibility of a more automated approach next time around. 

Late this morning, the clouds rolled in over the southern hill, the air felt moist and cool. It was lovely.

By the end of the day we had a roof. A beautiful gal roof. The 45-degree pitch did pose some challenges for Frank and Morag. A roof at this pitch is not so common and so it took longer than anyone expected.

As night fell, we had a roof and an almost-rendered exterior. We'd managed to rescue Frank's truck and trailer from the quagmire of clay-y mud that we were building in and we felt sore, tired and a little snappy. But as Morag and I drove home and I felt the cold night air on my face and I saw the sky alight with stars I felt so good, so grateful, so joy-filled and so excited for the progress over the days to come.