Over the next 90 minutes or so, she was able to cover approximately the forward three meters of the house. By the time she came down (more about that in a minute), it was too dark to take a picture, but I took one this morning.
This shows the work much better than the picture I took after applying the Gray Goo; the earlier photo has too much glare on it. Comparing the two, it's not obvious just how much better the roof looks now with the overcoat. In the photo above, compare the brighter white area to the space to the left of the ladders. Most of the roof that had been previously treated looked like the gray area to the left of the ladders before Lisa got started last night.
During the last stages of smoothing out the goo on the lower portion of the roof, Lisa directed me to straighten out the safety rope. Unfortunately, while I was doing this, she slipped, and in righting herself she put one foot right into the freshly-gooped roof. Although she quickly fixed the footprint, this mishap prematurely ended the work for the evening. That's because the sole of her left foot was now covered with the goo, which significantly lowered her traction, and low adhesion is something you definitely don't want while working on a steeply pitched roof. As quickly as she could, she tossed the roller off the roof into a bush, lowered the weed blower to the ground, disengaged the safety lines, and made her way down the ladder. I told her to leave me to straighten things up, and she headed inside to get as much of the goo off of her as she could before it dried. Once the goo dries and hardens, it's supposed to be pretty water-tight, but until then you can usually scrape it off with water and elbow grease.
Unfortunately, while policing the area, I managed to get goo on my gloves and a little bit on my slacks. I knew I should have put on my coveralls. Lisa, however, was able to get the goo stain out of the slacks later, which was a relief.
Now we need to allow a couple of days for this coat of goo to dry, which is good because today we're heading off to the Oregon Steam-Up in Brooks. Traditionally, this time of year is pretty hot and dry in Oregon. Imagine my surprise when I came out this morning and found it dreary and overcast. Fortunately, the chance of rain is low (we need it to stay dry until the roof material cures), and the overcast should clear later. Given the morning weather, it would have been a good time for me to go cut brush and split wood, but I need to get myself together now and go wake Lisa up so we can get ready to head to Brooks for today.
