Little House in Willamette Valley

Rather than barbeques and fireworks, our July 4th weekend was spent tearing the roof off the house in preparation for a new one. Most people would hire someone to do this sort of thing for them. But to my husband, this is a perfectly reasonable task to take on yourself (with the help of some friends, of course).

You see, my husband grew up the son of a carpenter and was a carpenter for many years—it’s one of the things I love about him. In his late 20s, he went back to school and earned his Masters degree in education—another thing that I love about him. (A guy who can fix things and build stuff AND talk educational philosophy and children’s books? This was the man for me.)

My appreciation of the sensitive manly man—the man who can do guy stuff and still carry on an intelligent, insightful conversation—was inspired early in life. I credit the “Little House on the Prairie” books for planting the seed that blossomed into the notion that men should be well-versed in tasks requiring brute strength and stamina, yet still refined.

It was the book version of Pa—not the curly haired boy-man of the TV show, Michael Landon—who served as the benchmark by which all other men would be judged in my life. Pa Ingalls was a guy who could fell massive trees, build a log cabin, tame wild horses, hunt down dinner, and then come home to bounce you on his knee, beguile you with stories, and play a jig on the fiddle—all while a plague of locusts swept across the prairie, engulfing your house.

So when my husband came down from the roof after spending 12 hours in the blazing sun—sunburned and grimy with soot and sweat, yet still his usual easy-going, cheerful self, quick with a goofy laugh—I felt a strange mixture of concern (it’s hot and dangerous up there, and he was obviously exhausted), pride (show me a harder working man than my man!) and, oddly enough, arousal (sure he was filthy and stank like road kill, but it was nothing a shower couldn’t fix.)

Day One of roof removal transformed me into a pioneer woman. It was my responsibility to keep the men fed and watered. I served breakfast, lunch and dinner; made sure there was plenty of ice water with slices of lemon available; and even tried to lob a bottle of Gatorade up on the roof (unfortunately, I throw like a girl and the bottle went crashing through our back kitchen window, spraying broken glass everywhere, much to Leo’s disgust and my embarrassment).
Day Two I hit the yard as the clean up crew. I waded through knee-deep piles of shingles, loaded them onto a wheelbarrow and wheeled it over to the rented dumpster where my husband would pile drive it up into the dumpster (my flimsy girl arms, not much good at throwing, weren’t much good at dumping the wheelbarrow, either).

Day Three I divided my time between clean up, grocery shopping and more cooking. Days Four and Five, the guys were on their own—I had to go back to work.

But now we have a new roof. And my husband tore off the horrible vinyl siding on the exterior walls to reveal a lovely little 1920s house underneath. All that’s left is patching and painting and resurrecting the demolished flowerbeds and erecting the picket fence…and a million other things. But my husband will surely weather it all with his cheerful nature and goofy laugh.

I only hope a plague of locusts doesn’t sweep into town.