Hmmmm...... "check twice/cut once." So if you check twice, you end up cutting ELEVEN times?
Maybe we´ve just been in our sweet pueblito too long. "Once" means "eleven" in Spanish, in case you don´t speak the language. But "eleven cuts" is rather annoyingly accurate...
What I refer to is this: we are feverishly trying to finish the roof over our new bathing/etc structure before we drive back north (pix of construction work are scattered in previous entries in this blog). However, it gets devilishly hot VERY early in the morning and only gets hotter with each day. I say "WE" but it is mostly "HE" -- namely Robert -- who is up there on a ladder, balancing on unsteady boards, measuring and handling a running saw, and wielding a hammer and nails. I remain below, in order to set out food (such as I have) and cold drinks..... and hover nearby to pick up anything important that might be dropped, or needed.
So yeah! In the heat, he has measured but not always managed an accurate second check -- and thus has made -- well, MAYBE as many as eleven wrong cuts if ALL were added up... but there have been far more accurate cuts, mind you. But with all that is left to do in order to get the roof finished so we can drive back north, it began to look like a late June takeoff for us.
So! MILAGRO (miracle) in the form of one very big oversight! making it all turn out all right.....
Momo sauntered up the driveway early this morning -- dear friend who always greets us with a big "Sayonara!" and the occasional "Konichiwa!" He sized up the situation quite accurately and said he had some friends nearby who are experts in putting up these kinds tile rooves (roofs?)... and went off to bring them by.
THEY sized up the situation VERY accurately.
The slope of our roof is not steep enough for water to pour down along the curved valleys of the tiles (teja) without leaking. They demonstrated with real tiles and real water. They were right.
On the ground below the structure, we have a beeeeg stack of clay tiles (red tejas) -- now useless to us. The young men gently recommended that we use galvanized roofing such as we have on all of our other structures.... (Incidentally, the slope on all of our other roofs is as gentle, so what did we know? We were just keeping a visual conformity, I guess.)
One kinda wishes they had come by before we had poured the tall cement posts at carefully measured heights... heights measured to create a gentle slope.
The Blessing is this: since we can´t use the tejas, and since Robert is thoroughly exhausted with the work he has already done from the ground up, and since this kind of work is what these guys DO, and since they are available and ask a reasonable fee -- we came to town today. We ordered a properly measured amount of galvanized roofing to be delivered to our place pronto.
Tomorrow, these guys will set to work, and Robert will unwind and go surfing in the continually great waves (what a season, I mean WHAT A SEASON! for boarders and boogiers alike).
All´s well that ends well.
How can you NOT love Robert! I mean, just LOOK at his "ladder"! He had planned to do all the structural work for the roof by himself but....
...he realized that if he hired a crew of experienced hands, THEY could do it and he could go surfing.... which is what he did. (You can scroll down to the entry "Starting Little Fires" to get a glimpse at the completed roof, though the roof was not the point of that photo.)
Oh, and then for the less challenging work, well, how about a cup of coffee? What you're seeing IS true in the moment -- our dear friend Guillermo sips hot coffee (made by me) while his wife Sara slaves away stripping bark for what will become really cool arched corner bracing on our new structure. You'll see.... just tune in here next fall. (these two are parents of Ariana, Sandra, Memo, and Flori, btw). Doesn't look like Robert's inclined to work either. In truth, the men HAVE been working, and hard. They deserve the shade, the seat, and the sipping.
