Navigatingthis instalment
of the
Cottage Diary:
Diary of an Inheritance, continued...
(This is the third segment of a diary recording the two week vacation in July 2001, when Heather and I entered into my inheritance – accepting, and beginning to transform, a dilapidated and mouse-infested shack, deep in the Québec woods.)
Day 6
Thursday, July 12, 2001Can you remind me why I thought it would be a good idea to bring the dog???
Although he has been nervous and tense in the extreme, I thought he was settling in at the cottage fairly well. He has begun to wander around the woods a bit – even in the rain – sometimes staying out for several hours at a time.... surely a sign of increasing comfort levels in his dogly mind??
But every night as we begin to fall asleep, we hear him pacing about the cottage, still nervous, panting, occasionally whimpering, and often in the dark knocking a thing or two over as he paced (the place is crammed with all the business of shifting, painting, building, and adjusting... there is plenty to knock over in the dark!)
Last night we had to sleep on the floor, in the same room where he does this nightly pacing and bumping. And his antics seemed worse – particularly because we were now in his path, and he would pace onto my feet, or walk up over Heather’s.
At two a.m., my body aching and sleepless, I couldn’t stand it any more, and I decided to kick him out. “You like being outside day and night – take your pacing and panting out there and let me sleep!” I muttered. He rushed out the offered door in apparent pleasure, and I was asleep almost before my head hit the pillow.
Suddenly we were wakened by loud and incessant barking somewhere down the lake. It was him. We know that bark anywhere. Clearly there would be no sleep for me this night!
It sounded like he was beside my brother’s cottage – and I could imagine Tim and Diana and their guests being startled awake by this bark outside their window. The dog had to be fetched home immediately, if not sooner. I stumbled into my clothes, grabbed a flashlight, and went over rock and root towards the sound.
As I neared my brother’s cottage, Socrates came bounding cheerfully towards me. “Get back to our place1 GET!” I whispered through clenched teeth. Off he went, looking for the first time as if he really enjoyed being at the cottage.
Back on our floor we once more tried to sleep, while Socrates resumed his whining, sighing, and restlessness. Eventually he stopped – and we slept.
In the morning it rained. I was too stiff and sore to even think about carrying more packets of shingles, so I was glad of an excuse to relax. However, it didn’t last long; there is plenty of indoor work to do...
This morning the cottage had two over-stuffed, mouse-used, sofas. Now it has only one. We could have taken the condemned sofa down to the boat, rowed it across the lake, then borrowed someone’s van to lug it to the dump, but it struck me that a more suitable disposal would be to dismantle it – put the upholstery in garbage bags, and use the frame for firewood.
The project took more than four hours, but it’s now done, and the cottage is beginning to look spacious.
Meanwhile, although our extended family wasn’t here at the lake when we arrived last Saturday, they’re here now, so there is some socializing to do. We had a visit at lunchtime, before starting to dismantle the old sofa, and then late this evening, when Ross showed up, there were cards over at Tim’s cottage. I didn’t take part in the second round of socializing; instead staying here and vacuuming up the last of the sofa debris. Eventually I sat down to read, and type these notes.
Ross and Tim and I will move the rest of the shingles over tomorrow.
Day 7
Friday, July 13, 2001Ross and Tim moved the shingles.
I had managed to carry only about three packets when, absolutely physically worn out, I tripped over a small root and nearly went headlong down the rocky bank. Shaking with exhaustion, I could not have lifted another ounce.
Ross said “You sit this one out,” and, with Tim, finished the job.
Heather continued her attack on the inside of the house, in the course of which she found a huge mouse nest behind Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
We only had until 2 p.m. to work, because my longest-standing friend in the world, John Bradley, with his wife Karen, was coming up for the afternoon. Their arrival was an unbelievably welcome break. We visited and chatted – householders with our first guests – until late evening. It was the rest I absolutely required. I feel slightly stronger now, and may even be quite vigorous by morning.
Tomorrow – unless it is teeming rain – the roof goes on.
Day 8
Saturday, July 14, 2001Well, at least it got started. Ross came over about 10 a.m. and began to scrape off the old roofing. There turned out to be two layers.... Years ago the original roof – a pleasant green shingle – must have begun to leak, so red roll roofing was nailed down over it. The re-roofing was so long ago that I had forgotten the original colour was green, but seeing those shingles brought back the memory of helping my dad put them on when we first built the place over forty years ago.
The time to re-roof once more has long since passed.
As the layers came off, thick patches of moss and lichen were revealed, and even a colony of ants living between the shingles.Heather spent the morning at a lake association meeting, but in the afternoon she joined us, and did a great deal of roofing removal herself.
Me? I did carpentry.
At the back, the wood of the stringers had begun to rot under the lip of the roof. We built this house just when plywood was becoming commonplace, but the convenient new building material was only used for the side walls. The roof was made with old fashioned “tongue and groove” boards. I removed the bottom two rows of these then cut off the rotten ends of the stringers beneath. Finally I made and installed a fascia. The overhang at the back of the cottage, which was once sixteen inches, is now 10.
I didn’t think this work would take the whole day, but it did. The shingles resisted removal for the two folks on the roof, and I now know that rotten boards are a whole lot harder to pull nails out of, and work with, than new wood.
An added indignity for me was the fact that I was attempting to hammer and saw over my head, facing up, while two people were scraping shingles off the roof. They tried to avoid me, but quite frequently my upturned face would get a direct hit from a clump of rotten shingle, or roof sweepings.
By 7:00 p.m. we were ready to stop for the day. The roof was bare, the rear consisted of clean, non-rotting wood, and the old shingles were now spread across a wide swath of forest floor.
| Heather: | “I sure hope it doesn’t rain tonight!” |
| Ross: | “Look what a nice day it’s been! It won’t rain!” |
| Tony: | “I have some plastic sheeting, maybe we can lay it out over at least part of the roof, just in case...” |
| Ross: | “Okay, we’ll do that, but I tell you, it isn’t going to rain!” |
| Heather: | “I dunno... it’s rained every day since we’ve been here!” |
I have two twenty-five foot rolls of sheeting, which, when we spread them out, covered three quarters of the roof. We decided to cover the bedroom and “living room” areas, and leave the place over the “kitchen” exposed to the rain which we dearly hoped wouldn’t come.
“One way to guarantee it won’t rain is to take the trouble to put out plastic sheeting... right?” I pronounced to no one in particular.
We ate a wonderful steak dinner, and were sitting over our coffee when it came. Out of nowhere (the sky was clear where I could see it from the window!). First we could hear a slight pitter-pat on the plastic sheeting above us, then heavier and heavier1 Soon it was pouring outside, and raining in the kitchen. Water came through between all those exposed roofing boards: it rained on the fridge, on the table, on the chairs, on the sink, and on the wood stove (in which a cheery fire was roaring – the stove hissing and steaming as the drops hit it).
But we were dry in the living room, and the bedding is dry.
Eventually the rain stopped. Ross and Heather and I wiped the table dry and pulled it into the living room, then had a pleasant game of scrabble. After Ross won, and went back to his cabin, Heather and I washed like pioneers – hair, bodies, and feet – using nothing but a small dishpan. It was my first cleanup in a week. We’ll be going to church in the morning.
Continued.... click here for next segment.