Bright and Shiny

Last weekend Paul and his pals reroofed the barn with galvanized tin. Hurrah for manual labor and three day weekends! I had been pining for a new barn roof for months, and with fall right around the corner and months of incessant rain coming, the time for a new roof was now. Make hay while the sun shines? Ha! Roof the barn while the weekend's long!



Paul had consulted with lots of folks prior to our deciding to go with tin, and had spent hours up on the roof screwing down one-by-fours to stabilize the roof and make places for the screws to bite in (since the plywood roofing material is somewhat shoddy). Last Saturday our friend Rod came over and helped Paul shim up the roof all the way around to make it level...what a huge difference! Sunday they finished shimming and then added the tin, and our friend Cowboy Bob came in time to help get the trim pieces and gable piece up. The chickens I'm sure are relieved all the activity is over with...no more tractor rumbling around their pen (the bucket provided a quick and strong lift skyward for the men), no more random pieces of debris falling into the run from above, no more loud power tools and voices. But even better...no more rain on their little bodies while they're inside the coop!



Yes, the roofing is complete. It looks fantastic...all shiny and clean and straight. I love it. Too bad the rest of the barn looks horrible. Hopefully a fresh coat of paint (barn red, perhaps?) will help in that regard. We need to work on the big barn door, too (notice how it leans in at the top in the photo, right where Paul is).


It'll never be perfect or look like a carpenter built it, but it's clean, dry, relatively strong, and useful. That's good enough for me!