The guy on the phone asked how long the house was. “Thirty feet,” Ginny replied.
In the background she could hear the other guy. “No, not the width. The length.”
We had to laugh at that. It seems no one lives in 1200-square-foot houses with two bedrooms and one bath anymore. And a length of 30 feet. Yeah, I know. We’re behind the times.
She was calling about shingles. We couldn’t put it off anymore. We had to put a new roof on.
A few days later the new shingles arrived.

shingles awaiting installation
Don and Brett would be showing up early on Sunday to install the new roof. In the meantime we had a pretty good – but certainly not remarkable – rain on Friday night and early Saturday. That was fine with me, as I was working on an article deadline for Sport Rider magazine. Ginny was in the living room reading and I was in the den with my laptop at hand when we hear – and feel – a heavy crash. The shaking through the house was severe enough that I thought a tree had come down on us.
True enough, a very large tree limb had come down, but it missed the house. Just barely.
Sunday suddenly became a very busy day.

Errant Tree Limb
You can’t really see it, but the limb is sheared at the trunk of the tree. It’s held there only by the tension and weight of the limb. The small shed behind it gives some scale for how large it is.

The View Towards the House
Here’s looking towards the house. The wooden well housing was miraculously spared.

View from the Side
This view from the side shows how long and extensive the limb was.

View from the Deck
The limb came all the way to the house, as apparent in this shot. But although leaves and branches hit the deck, none of the heavy parts of the limb did. Lucky!

Cleaning Up
Pretty much the same view, after a few hours of cutting.

Jeff's Chainsaw

Roofers at Work
Meanwhile, Andrew, Don, and Brett (and Zachary, not in the picture), worked on replacing the roof.

A Busy Day!
An awful lot going on in one day…