Pulling things apart, and putting them back together

What a past few weeks we’ve had, with rainy snowy icy weather, a leaking roof, water damage, a dead tree that had to come down, and people coming and going, sometimes announced, sometimes not. There have been lots of distractions.

We had water coming into our attic and dripping down, during a heavy amount of rain. We called a roofer who checked and told us we had hail damage from a storm that happened back in April last year! It got worse as water found its way into the small pits, which grew larger over the past months. I saw the giant hail, and even saw my neighbors needed their roof replaced, but I naively thought we got very lucky. The insulation got sopping wet and moldy. We haven’t gotten to that part yet.

First we had a dead tree down and the stump ground, so it wouldn’t hit the new roof.

We were fortunate that they got to us when they did, because the roofers then came back out of the blue, in a hurry to get to us before the ice storm was expected. They were trying to get to everyone who had a leaky roof before the storm came. They showed up on a painfully cold day, and did the whole roof that day. We woke up to find tarps across our front steps and our back deck, and before we knew it, men were on the roof, tossing shingles over the edges.

They did a nice job, but have to come back for the leaky gutters, which also got hit.

We made it just in time for the ice storm. Whew. I was so glad. We would have had a bigger mess if the roof had not been replaced, and that tree would have fallen on the house for sure.

The ice was lovely, especially when the sun came out and was shining through it. It looked like it was glowing.

The iced trees were making clicking and cracking noises, like giant insects,

while the icicles were melting off the eaves.

A lot of people lost their electricity. We were so lucky ours stayed on, except for one brief time. We didn’t have a phone or Internet connection for days, but that is better than having no electricity. When the power went out and came back on, I felt so relieved and grateful for it.

Mr Santana, our visiting neighbor cat, came in during the worst of the weather. He spent one night in our crawlspace, but it became too difficult to get out to the door. Instead, he spent the afternoons in the living room and the nights in my bathroom.

He was a surprisingly polite guest. I think he knew he had to behave himself. He doesn’t want to go to his house because he doesn’t get along with one cat there, and he doesn’t get along with my next door neighbor’s cats, but he wanted to come in our house, where there are a bunch of cats. It made sense to him.

Josephine was fascinated by him. She is very silly, and has been determined to pat him on his big fluffy butt. He didn’t know what to do about that. He is twice her size, and he ran away from her.

He found some favorite spots. He helped me do my computer work and helped my dad play solitaire.

I think I will make a second post, with the projects I’ve been working on, between our interruptions, since this one is growing long!