This is not the post I was going to write but the one that I was given. I gave my presentation at the local ladies' reading circle. That was lots and lots of fun — absolutely no effort on my part because it is so easy to talk about the Camino.
When I got back, I had a phone message from the nursery school teacher who said that she had gone into my office to photocopy something and saw that water was pouring from a leak in the ceiling. Drat — I really thought we were going to escape an ice dam. Nope. I phoned her and she said she had moved everything off my desk because that is where the leak was but my photos got wet so she took them out of the frames and the folders with my vestry notes were wet.
So, I changed into rain pants (which I subsequently tore on the standing seam roof) and jacket, huge boots, gloves and got a snow shovel. I dragged a ladder to the side of the one-story parish house that is by the church because I knew that I could wedge it in a way that it wouldn't fall down. With shovel, I climbed up on the roof, and crawled my way to the front where the leak is (where it always is). And then, sitting or lying down on my stomach (for a longer reach), I shovelled off as much snow as I could.
Here's a view from the roof, looking at the rectory.
And this is the lilac tree that captures the snow that then gets stuck and backs up.
My poor office. I guess I am fated to take it apart partially every other year (to get the floor done) and completely every four or ten (to get the ceiling repaired). This is it mostly taken apart. The red circle indicates the seam along which the water is leaking.
These are some of the things that normally hang on the walls.
And more stuff — I have too much but I've been in this office for 14 years.
I wish the office could stay like this, that is, empty, but since we share the one-room parish house with the nursery school, I will have to move everything back in. I will not reassemble my desk until I am sure that the roof won't leak again. The computer is under the tarp. The nursery school teacher, who rescued it, said that only the speakers seemed to have gotten wet.
It's time for some Abuelo!
3 comments:
Condolences. I have a leak, too - fortunately it's in the roof of an outdoor porch and thus not as bad as it could be. I have a date with a trowel and a gallon bucket of flashing cement set for tomorrow afternoon, when it's going to be sunny and dry and in the 60s.
Good luck! I remember getting up on my roof to shovel snow off right in the middle of a blizzard one year...
I thought these roof leaks were just for us in the Third World. Well, I had a visit from the Grandfather today, too. It always helps!
I'd better not have any leaks with the new roof and siding! I'm so sorry you've had that problem again. Sometimes my prayers don't seem to work. 8>( Please be careful on the roof.
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