There’s no way to teach someone how to shovel snow off a roof. The old farmhouse doesn’t have a manual of operation that contains a chapter on clearing snow so that the whole place doesn’t collapse. And there’s no way of knowing when there’s too much snow above you; supporting timbers in a 175 year-old building don’t have splintering monitors.
For the second time this winter, I clambered up onto the back roof to clear the snow away. This is a shallow pitched roof over the breakfast room of the inn, and when I got up there and stood, the snow came up to my pelvis. I gyrated a few times, as if I were hula-hooping, to push clear a spot to stand. Under my feet I imagined I could feel the smooth metal surface of the roof--metal that was supposed to be slick enough to shed the snow by itself. But all I could feel was the crunch of snow beneath my boots.
During the winter there is usually a rise and fall of temperatures that promotes not only a reduction in the snow pack through sublimation, but also movement off the roof. This winter, however, has seen consistently cold temperatures here in Vermont, keeping the snow in place. Normally I would ignore it and wait for spring to eventually do the work for me, but foul weather is forecast for the end of the week: sleet, some rain, high winds. That added moisture could be enough to push the weight of the snow into the danger zone. Time to go to work.
Earlier in the winter I’d rigged a way for me to work up there in semi-safe conditions. I attached a stout rope to a heavy eyebolt screwed into a corner post of a dormer. Lashing the rope around my waist gave me a kind of harness that would arrest my fall, should I slip. Of course, the rope might break some ribs, or twist around my neck and strangle me, but it offered an alternative to the fifteen-foot drop off the back roof.
Why, you might ask, am I doing this? Standing on the roof, I can look up and down the road and see enterprising Woodchucks (the name given to local who can trace their families back seven generations in Vermont) rattling around in their pickup trucks, the beds filled with shovels and ladders. For a few bucks--20, 50, 75--they’ll crawl up the side of your building like snow crabs, dangle from your cornices and turrets like bats, and shovel the snow off your roof while you gaze up thoughtfully at them over a nice hot cup of coffee.
It comes down to purpose. Over the years I’ve done almost all the work that’s been needed to this old house. I’ve rebuilt all but one of the bathrooms, painted, plumbed, wired, trenched, and nailed together everything that’s needed nailing, trenching, wiring, plumbing, and painting. The only things I haven’t done are the big-ticket items like heating systems. There’s a certain satisfaction in knowing that when you look at your life, you can claim ownership over the elements that comprise it. I can point to something in every room, every corner and say, “That’s me.” I have not checkbooked my way through this experiment, which is in year eleven. I have sweated and sworn and innovated and persevered through it. What I didn’t know how to do already, I learned. Like shoveling snow off a roof.
Though it may sound simple, there is an art to this task, and the art is to do it without getting killed or injured. It takes concentration and thought, because shoveling the wrong spot, or overextending yourself with a bucket full of snow could be ruinous. So I methodically begin removing large sections of snow off the roof, the hiss of it sliding down the metal, the soft thunk of it hitting the snow piled on the ground below. I’m sweating; my breathing is rhythmic. And after a couple of hours of carefully placing my boots where they are less likely to slip, I am done.
Later, after a shower and a couple of Advil, I look out the window at the piles of snow and think of the stupidity of what I’ve done. It has started to snow again. So much for the art. I have fulfilled Oscar Wilde’s prophecy: "To reveal the art and conceal the artist is art's aim." My art is the straggling hunks of snow that remain on the mostly bare roof; the artist has hidden himself away, waiting for the next snow to pile up.
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