Yesterday it was stormy.  So stormy that the Astoria/Megler bridge was closed for a time because a semi had turned over near the Washington side, blocking traffic both ways.  I don’t know for a certainty that the weather and the trucking mishap were related, but the last time that happened, it was also in a storm.

Here in Oysterville it was nasty – strong gusts rattled our windows, the garden was puddly, and the chicken run a muddy morass.  Nevertheless, I thought I heard hammering once or twice coming from the direction of Tucker and Carol’s.  When I looked in that direction, I could no longer see the blue tarp that for several days had covered the west side of their roof-in-progress.

When Nyel and I left the village mid-morning (on our way to some doctor appointments) I drove via School Street so we could see what was going on.  It was pouring and visibility was not great but, nevertheless, we saw plenty of evidence that the roofers had been working – if not during yesterday’s storm, certainly in the rain of the day before.

The blue tarp was indeed gone and lovely new cedar shingles covered the upper west roof from ridgeline to dripline.  They looked shiny and proud to be weathering their first heavy rain, protecting the house from the ravages of our coastal weather.

Nearby, a forklift was parked and across the street, near the schoolhouse, the roofer’s big flatbed truck loaded with shingles sat waiting patiently.  There were no worker bees in sight – thank goodness.  It wasn’t a day to be clambering around on a steeply pitched roof.  I wondered if that hammering I’d heard was my imagination or if one of the roofers had actually tried to do a little work earlier in the morning.

I was reminded of that old joke about the hillbilly who was sitting in his house midst buckets and pans catching the rainwater that streamed and dripped from the ceiling.  When asked why he didn’t repair his roof he said, “Can’t do it in this rain.  Don’t need to when it stops.”

Thank goodness for blue tarps and fearless roofers and sunbreaks between the storms!  Thank goodness that every shingle nailed in place means that Tucker and Carol are that much closer to Move-In Day!