Welcome!

In February of 2009, my husband and I bought our first home located on a few acres in Johnson, Vermont. We live here with our dog, Ollie, two cats: Elvis and Atticus, six Nigerian Dwarf goats: May, Chutney, Poppy, Juniper, Willow, and Jokers Wild, and about fifteen laying hens. And to top it all off we welcomed our daughter, Isabel, into the world on January 11th, 2011.

We're slowly updating our 1850's farmhouse while steadily working towards a healthy, meaningful, self-sufficient life together.

This blog details our endeavors along with our successes and failures- all in good fun. Thanks for stopping by, hope to see you again soon!

May

May
May and I enjoying some sunshine

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Success! I am a roofer!

Lovingly Posted by Melissa Friday, March 12, 2010

Ok, I'm sure any genuine roofers out there wouldn't appreciate my work, but hey, I put up a metal roof yesterday all by myself so I think I get a few bragging rights.  Its not much to look at seeing as though it's just four sheets of salvaged metal roofing from when we tore down half our barn a year ago.  But, along with the plywood roof that is now underneath it, the shed should keep our four little piggies nice and dry for many rain/snow storms to come.  With the wet weather we are due to get in the next week and a half I was really pushed to get the roof finished so the precipitation wouldn't just seep through the cracks where the sheets of plywood meet.

Kyle and I had intended on finishing the roof last weekend but between finishing the electric fence for the pigs, all the lawn work, Relay for Life at Trapp Family Lodge, snowboarding at Jay Peak, and wedding dress shopping with my BFF, Ali, time got a little tight.  So, I decided that on Wednesday, the most beautiful day of the week (in the mid to upper 40s and sun sun SUN), I would take the day off from my '9-5' job to finish it up myself.

The first order of business was to sort through the sheets of roofing we had stashed away.  Not all of the sheets are really in great shape, but we kept them all because we figure there might be a time we need some cheap covering for something.  Like, its probaby OK to have a slightly leaky roof over what will someday be a cover for firewood (seeing as we'll probably cover it with a tarp as well).  So, once I sorted through and found a handful of extra-long, fairly-leak-proof panels of metal roofing I was ready to go.

I slid the first panel up onto the roof and positioned it so there was a bit of an overhang on all sides (especially on the front- due to the length of our panels it was either way to short or a bit too long).  I had all my tools on the roof so climbed up and got to work.  I used a combination of roofing nails and screws.  The nails punched through two layers of roofing alot easier than the screws but the screws were crucial along the edges of the roof where I couldn't quite see if I was hitting a 2x4 or not.    For the most part I used the pre-existing holes from where the roofing nails had been, but added a few extra here and there if the edges weren't sitting quite right.

It didn't take long at all to finish up the roof.  Before I knew it my main project of the day was finished and I was left wondering what I should do next.  I moved all the extra sheets of roofing to a new, tidier storage area behind where we keep our compost bin.  With right around 30 sheets of metal roofing, this took way more time and energy than finishing the pigs roof!  It was good to get them moved, though, because they had been stowed away within one of the pastures for the goats which just isn't the best location.

2 comments

  1. looks great ! and I just LOVE your view f those beautiful mountains!!!

     
  2. Melissa Says:
  3. yeah, it was beautiful! had to stop and enjoy the view every couple minutes. :)