It's just not a trip up home to visit my family if I'm not called upon to perform some act of home repairor improvement. This often involves electronics: my mom's computer won't be doing what she tells it to do (which makes sense, since it doesn't have voice recognition software), or my grandparents' DVD player and/or satellite tv needs to be rewired and/or reprogrammed. But sometimes my tasks are more ... physical.
My mother has a weathervane. It's name is 'Doc', and it's a classic cast-iron rooster on top of a cast-iron vane. Unfortunately, Doc had recently tilted over to one side and was happily telling us that the wind was always out of the south. This would never do. Never know when a spontaneous need to go kite flying might overcome us. I don't even want to imagine the horrors of walking out with one's kite, thinking that the wind was out of the south when actually it's out of the north. Or -- heaven forbid! -- the east!
The issue needed to be rectified at once.
The day before the Great Weathervane-Righting Project of 2009, the temperature was in the lower sixties and I had the top down on Frannie, my convertible (it's a tradition in my family to name inanimate objects: cars, weathervanes, stereos, Paris Hilton). Alas, on the day of the GWv-RP'09, the sky was overcast, the temperature was thirty-six degrees Fahrenheit, and there was a brisk wind ... apparently out of the south.
I put on my hiking boots, bundled up into a winter parka, found some tools and a ladder, and went to evaluate the task.
Doc the Rooster Weathervane sits atop the roofline of one of my mom's outbuildings. Said roof is steep. CAUTION GRADE steep. Sledding in the Winter steep. Don't Try This at Home Without Mountain-Climbing Gear steep.
I didn't have mountain-climbing gear. I had hiking boots. But sometimes you've just got to work with what you have to work with, no matter what the warning label says. So I set up the ladder, waited for my mom to find the camera so that she could document me falling off the roof, and then began my ascent. I put one foot on the shingles and felt no traction. It was liketrying to stand on a frozen lake that had been turned sideways. No friction at all.
"Maybe if you try it with just socks!" my mother suggested, yelling over the wind. Great. Socks. That wouldn't be cold at all. I untied my shoes and tossed them down. I tentatively put my socked foot down on the shingle and... and ... better.
I put both socked feet on the slanted shingles, happy that I'd be able to now quickly scramble up to theweathervane, right it, and get back inside to watch "Into Thin Air," the movie about a tragic 1996 Everest climb.
I promptly began sliding toward the edge of the roof.
Only quick thinking, lightning reflexes, and the fact that the ladder was close beside my left hand saved me from spilling over the side and plunging to my doom (or at least a ten-foot drop to hard ground).
"Maybe bare feet!" my mother shouted. Really? I sighed again.
There was definitely better traction, but it still wasn't working. The roof was too steep, the shingles(and my feet) were too cold. We only had one option left. "Let me grab some rope and we'll throw it over to the other side. I'll tie it off and then you can use that to climb!"
Sounded good to me. My mum tied several lengths of rope together with dubious knots and tossed it to me. I tossed it over the top of the building ... where it promptly fell short and looped itself thoroughly around the weathervane.
I sighed.
Nothing to do about it. Now I had to get up there if only to untangle the rope from around Doc's neck (though I rather liked him in that position). The only way to do it was to use the rope. The weathervane bent (it was on a swivel, of course) but it didn't give as I put some of my weight on the rope. I climbed, ever so slowly. And then ... then ... then ... I had made it!
We hooked the rope on the far side of the barn as per the original plan and I was finally able to straighten the vane on the roof, though I'll admit that my inclination was to throttle Doc and toss the whole mess into the yard.
My fingers were blue and I couldn't feel my toes, but the job was done. After I made it back to earthand was walking back to the house, I turned to look up at Doc.
The wind was out of the south.
(Photo caption: The author untangles his climbing rope from the one place it wasn't supposed to be.)
(Photo caption: The author tries to get some feeling back in his toes. It isn't working.)
