The roof job began today. They had to clean it to prepare the surface.

I told the guy who came to the door that I hadn’t been up there to sweep (most of it’s flat) since the time I fell off it. He did kind of a horrified laugh and was okay with my not.

I had been told to move any plant pots out of the way and tried but turns out there really was no out of the way, there was only less so, as the roof dripped like a hard rain while the spray billowed out over the yard. I did at least get my water-sensitive apricots out of range of most of it. It went on all day. I could not get a photo to really capture the effect, but during several bursts it went clear over the fence to the neighbor’s.

I just hoped they weren’t holding a family wake for Jim next door with those familiar cars there. It would, um, kind of put a damper on things.

But it wasn’t just power washing, there were scrapings and gougings and a lot of hard, loud work going on.

Having seen all my fruit trees, one guy mentioned mid-day that the years of collected leaves up there were really great for the garden; did I have a compost pile? Did I want this?

I knew full well that the company wouldn’t have to pay for the time or space to remove them if I said yes and I still said yes because his enthusiasm for the possibilities of how good this stuff was got to me. So now I have bags of almost-composted stuff, all nicely bagged and piled up by the pear tree, where it most could use it. I just didn’t expect to have quite so many–wait. Yes. I kind of did. Anyway, there are a lot. I’m hoping I can transmit some of that enthusiasm to fellow gardeners out there. Have a bag. No, no, I insist.

It sounded sort of like a dentist’s drill up there.

The actual new roof will begin in two weeks and take two weeks to get done along with the wood replacement, if their schedule holds to what they told me.

One of the things the building contractor will be doing at the same time is replacing all the skylights and the wood they’re sitting on–which is really good, because the one in the big bathroom now has a crack going around the edge on three sides that was not there last night. Had it made it to the fourth it would have fallen through to the floor.

I can’t hope for no rain, I just can’t, but next to the tub is really not a kosher way of taking a shower, not even on a drip system.

We’re getting there.

Two of them were cleaning up the debris on the edge of the back patio at the end and I opened the slider and said, I don’t need to water my tomatoes today.

They turned, saw where those were, and laughed, No. You don’t.