Every so often I do one of those things that not only remind me how old I am, but convince me that I am getting even older and that getting older involves a price of sorts. Helping a friend reroof his house is my most current example. The lesson came through in spite of the advance planning to do the "old guy stuff" and to serve as a support role with this project. There was a son, a son-in-law, a grandson, and two college friends of the grandson, so there was plenty of youth on the crew.

Yesterday after my day job, I worked until dark and only then did the crew take time for supper. This morning we went back at it and broke for a late lunch, when the rain came. We were fortunate, by that time, the ridge cap was in place; only trimming the gable ends remain.

Last evening, the homeowner and I cleaned up the tear off that the crew had simply dumped on the ground. That task involved lots of bending; I moreorless felt like a quadruped after three hours. Today I did additional clean up, cut the ridge cap, and was an on-call go-for. For old time sake, I did carry one bundle of shingles up the ladder; it was a lot harder than I remember or it is clearly no longer as easy as I remember. I was bushed by the time we finished our 3:00PM lunch, and I had packed up my tools and headed home. I will check back in tomorrow; hopefully the remaining crew members will have the gable ends trimmed. I can take care of whatever clean up remains and pack up my wheelbarrow and two extension ladders.

The weather cooperated nicely. There were a few sprinkles early this morning as a warning. We decided to work through to the end before breaking for lunch, which proved to be in synch with the weather and whoever decides that. The rain is most welcome. We have been in a very dry period for the past four to six weeks. I also washed my truck this past Thursday; that may have helped also. Scheduling a roofing job and washing one's truck within a 72-hour period may be an effective appeal for rain.

When I got home and had packed away the tools from the roofing job, I decided it was time to take the snowblower out of the garage and store it in the shed until this November. I haven't used it for at least six weeks or more, so I think I'm safe with this decision. The snowshovel and the snowscoop are on their hooks beneath the deck, so my back-ups are readily available in case of a late season snowfall. The lawnmower has now moved from the shed to the spot in garage most recently occupied by the snowblower. With this rain, I may be mowing the lawn before the end of the week. I don't keep records on this sort of thing, but I would bet I have never mowed the lawn during the month of April in the 26 plus years, I have lived in this area.

I came home from the job site with a black and blue thumbnail on my right hand and I am right handed. Also, I did not drive a single nail during the two day project. So how does that happen, one might ask, especially for one who spent very little time up on the roof. I was helping the grandson reinstall some fascia and soffet material that had been removed. I was holding the aluminum fascia in place so that it could be nailed. I got nailed. Well, both the fascia and I got nailed. We laughed about it, even though it stung.

Oh yes, one other task remains, that is, to return the extras from the project to the lumberyard for credit. There are 17 bundles of shingles, one bundle of starter strips, one roll of felt, and drip edge to be returned. That task is scheduled for next Saturday.

I'm not particularly wedded to memoirs.

In addition to Nuala O'Faolain, two others were good reads this past winter: Seldom Disappointed by Tony Hillerman and Off to the Side by Jim Harrison.

This evening on Bill Moyers' Journal, Louise Erdrich was a guest. It was a great piece; I wanted the opportunity to ask several follow up questions. I wasn't afforded the opportunity. Is there a way to open television to two-way communication? Come to think of it. I sent Mika Brzezinski a very thoughtful--at least I thought so--email some time ago and never received a response. I figured at least a computer/software generated "Thank You" could be expected. Well, I guess that is what I get for expecting too much--disappointed. I should have heeded the advice of Tony's mother.

It appears that the first round of clean up for the 2010 syrup season is complete. Monday was a holiday for me, so I spent several hours during the day in the sugarbush. One of the partners, who drove up from the Cities earlier in the day, joined me after supper to work for a few hours. All three partners went at it Tuesday evening, after I spent the day at my day job. We pulled all the spiles, disassembled the bags/bag holders, washed the bag holders, the bulk tanks, and miscellaneous other equipment. Once clean, the items get stored inside the sugar house. A bucket gets placed over the stack/chimney of the evaporator to keep rain from ruining the arch. The doors on the cupola are secured to reduce the risk of wind damage.

It got late last evening, so I brought the spiles home and washed them tonight before I made myself a supper of leftovers. Don't feel bad about leftovers. Beef and bean guesadillas put together from the leftovers from a taco supper don't really seem like leftovers.

The last of the sap was left in the evaporator to sour. It apparently becomes slightly acidic and dissolves much of the mineral scale that builds up inside the pans during the season. In 4 or 6 weeks, we will disassemble the evaporator and clean the pans.

One other task remaining is to replenish the woodpile. I hope to have that task completed by July 1st. My goal is to have two year's supply of wood in the pile by that time each year, so it has at least 18 months to cure before it will be used in the evaporator. Properly seasoned wood makes for a hotter and more efficient fire, in my estimation. With a short season and less production this year, we used just a little more than half the wood we usually do in a season. Bringing the woodpile back up to goal wouldn't be as much work as last year, when we used more that usual.

The rains that were in the forecast during the past week did not materialize. Therefore, we didn't have to work around them. Conditions are very dry at this time, quite unusual for this time of the year also.

With rain in the forecast yesterday, I found the motivation to finish raking the yard. I even broke up the last of the snow bank at the bottom of the driveway so that I could rake under it and not just around it. The remnants of that snow bank, which I tossed around the yard, are gone this morning. I hauled one large load of rakings to the City compost site and called it a day. I didn't have it in me to load up that which remained. I tried to convince myself to just leave it in the back corner of the lot as an addition to the brush/needle/ leaf pile that has been there for years and refuses to decompose appreciably in what I think is a reasonable amount of time. I have come to respect pine needles as pretty sturdy bits and pieces of the natural world.

Even though I couldn't find the energy to finish the clean up yesterday, my moral compass or my tidiness meter remained intact. I found myself mildly troubled by the leftovers or "left-behinds" from yesterday's raking project. This morning early, even before coffee, I loaded up the stuff I pushed to the side yesterday along with a little extra off the old pile, for good measure, and took it to the compost site. Now that job is done; unless I re-evaluate that bit of my recent past and come to the conclusion I missed something.

By the way, the rain has now been pushed out another day--maybe later today. It was originally slated for yesterday evening--around suppertime.

As I finished up the outside work yesterday, the winter bird feeder was put away and replaced with the bird bath. My plan is to put up the finch feeder today; it needs a bit of repair. I have an idea how I might do that, but success may be fleeting.

I have been reading the memoirs of Naula O'Faolain in recent months, which I found totally by accident at the local library. I roam the stacks and look for books, which catch my eye--hardly a thoughtful approach to literature, but not a bad way to meet new people--even ladies, I might add. The first is titled Are You Somebody? and the second is Almost There. Naula is an Irish author, born in 1940 and died in 2008, which makes her a contemporary of mine. Her narrative of growing up in an Irish Catholic family and the lifelong impact of that childhood has given me a perspective from which I find myself reflecting on my own childhood and adolescent experience.

A passage from late in the second book seems so original and insightful; it suggests a function or benefit of writing, which I have never seen articulated before. It reads: "I never wrote for its own sake, I told him [John, her current companion]--I wrote so as simply to live, and then so as to live better, and not just to get better at managing life, but to be a better person." This passage can stand on its own, but it the context of the author's life, it holds a much richer and tragic connotation. These two books are difficult reads, but well worth the effort.

Yesterday appears to have marked the end of the 2010 maple syrup season. The small amount of sap we collected yesterday was clearly different than that collected just the day before.

We evaporated and finished everything we had on hand by mid-afternoon and ended the season with 21 gallons and 2 pints of syrup.

We will let things set for a few days to make sure our hunches are accurate and then complete the first round of clean-up.