Savers and Shingles

Last Friday I took an afternoon off to go stock up on cold weather work clothes. Snow is starting to threaten our work days, and while the wood stove can take some of the chill off, there are cracks and holes everywhere now- dinner plate sized holes in the roof, vent holes in the floor, and inch wide gaps in the siding. The cold wind whistles right through, stirring up dust clouds as it goes. Not only is it cold, but this is the dirtiest thing I have ever done. When I pry off a board, torrents of dirt fall down on my head. Sometimes when I get home I have to drop my clothes in the entryway, and step back out on the porch in my underwear to shake them off before I let them in the house. The laundry has been piling up faster than my limited wardrobe can keep up. Between the cold and the dirt, the proper outfits are essential, and lots of them.

So the green cotton sweater I’m wearing has the distinctive Savers Thrift Store odor- overtones of laundry detergent and mothballs, with mysterious underlying scents of the former owner. Savers is a saviour when it comes to the need for lots of cheap, warm clothes. For $57 I got eight things, including a preciously ugly grey insulated parka that makes me look like a skier from Texas who just snowplowed through the lift line. Some scotch-guarded jeans would go perfectly with it. Winner of the best deal category was a Patagonia capilene long underwear top for 99 cents. Most coveted item was a green canvas jacket, suitable for evening wear, that Rebecca tried to talk me into giving her. In the Questionable Purchase category was a grey fiberfill vest with a stain that grosses me out a little bit. A grey fleece sweater and three other warm shirts, all grey or green, were featured that night in the fashion show that Rebecca always requests after a Savers shopping trip.

The whole closet smells like Savers now. But yesterday I wore that fleece sweater while I was up on the roof in howling December winds, and I was toasty warm. We have finally arrived at the penultimate stage- taking down the roof. Next will be the walls, then the floorboards, then the joists and timbers. Everything in our timing and sequence right now is oriented to trying to keep the floorboards dry once the roof comes off, since we plan to re-use them in our new living room. We’re betting on sun and racing the inevitable big snow dump. I have three tabs in my browser set to three different weather reports, and they’re all always different. So we’re just plowing ahead.

Yesterday we were pulling asphalt shingles off the roof. A windy day is not the best day to do this. The shingles were so happy to finally be free of their flattened state that they flew off into the neighbor’s yard like birds escaping their cages. But it was glorious to be up on the roof. The sun came and went, and at moments I felt as wide open and uplifted as the swirling sky. But most of the time, I was just focused on prying up the next shingle without being blown off the roof. That’s how this work is- its just about what’s right in front of you- getting that stubborn crooked nail out, or delicately rocking the prybar back and forth in the crack between floorboards, feeling for the gentle pop that happens when the tongue snaps free from the groove. I’m loving this simple satisfaction that comes with something done well, even if it’s just a tarped a pile of wood that holds up in crazy winds.

Today the wind is up again, and there are more shingles waiting for us. We managed to get the wheelbarrow up on the roof so Rebecca could cart the piles of shingles to the front edge, where she could toss them into Black Beauty, our $900 pick up truck. The plan is to then drive forward ten feet to the dumpster, where we’ll toss the shingles again. If it saves one more time of bending over to pick up the same shingle, its worth it. I can tell that my back only has so many bend-overs left in it, and I’m rapidly using them up.

And today we’re going back for more. I wonder which of my new Savers shirts I should wear?