a shelter from the storms

I believe it was the poet Longfellow who wrote, “Ere the season ends, I shall grill my steak under the cover of some kind of shelter, to keep the snow off my food.” Like the poet Longfellow, I too have a weird name. But that wasn’t going to stop me from constructing a shelter over my BBQ. I wouldn’t allow Mother Nature, Old Man Winter, Jack Frost or the Easter Bunny to stand in my way. I was committed, I was prepared, I was driven by that pioneer spirit that burns in all our breasts, thighs and wings.

Someone once said (perhaps it was Longfellow) that a plan is just a list of things that can go wrong. Well said Longfellow! My plan was more than a list of things that could go wrong, it was a list of things that did go wrong and then went even wronger. Much like the word “wronger” everything I was doing was incorrect and as poorly thought out as my grammar.

First, I made a list, which is never a good idea. The list was far too detailed to begin with. It began:
1. Write a list
2. Get a pencil

And so on. I didn’t even get to the shelter until the 17th item on my list. So I decided that a list was a terrible idea and no architect ever began a great project by rooting through my junk drawer looking for a pencil, holding up a bunch of elastic bands and asking, “Why do I keep these things? When will ever need a bunch of elastic bands? And what the hell is this? A single paper clip! Why would I feel the need to keep a single paper clip, hidden away in the back of the drawer under a grocery receipt from 2008? Why would I keep that? For tax purposes? Did I think that I could write off a bottle of ketchup? Or was I somehow dissatisfied with the ketchup and hoped to return it?” As you can see, building a shelter can be a long, drawn out process, fraught with many rhetorical questions.

As you may recall, the shelter had a flat roof, which would not work at all. So I took a few boards off, just to see if I could reconstruct a beautifully shaped gabled roof with the current layout. It wasn’t quite clear to me, so I took a few more boards off.

After much deliberation (a few days, possibly more than a week) I decided that the roof would have to be completely rebuilt so I took the remaining boards off. After it was off, I decided that without that strengthening support, the shelter was pretty wobbly. So I spent a few moments shaking the shelter, testing its structural integrity. We get a lot of snow here in the winter and I was concerned that all that snow could send my roof crashing down on my steak and by extension, my head. Using complex formulas, I calculated the weight per square foot of snow by climbing on top of the shelter and hanging off the end, impersonating a bunch of heavy snow. Y’know, just to see. It was then that my nosy neighbor called out to me from the other side of the fence, “Whacha doin’ there?”

I won’t record the conversation because obviously anyone who uses the word, “Whacha” is not going to offer any insightful contributions to a project of that magnitude. After 45 minutes of me not listening to his helpful advice which came in the form of, “Whacha wanna do is put that support beam on the top of the…” So that was one day wasted. I couldn’t very well go back to work after being told in no uncertain terms where to place a support beam and having absolutely no intention of following his directions. This was MY project after all.

The next day (or maybe it was a week later) I decided that the current layout of the walls wasn’t quite right so I decided to take down a few boards. Once those were put aside I pondered the walls again and took down a few more boards. My shelter had to be just perfect and I would brook no short cuts, no design errors, no single board out of place. So I took a few more boards off.

As I stood there looking at the gutted remains of the shelter, it occurred to me that the whole thing would need to be rebuilt. So I took a few more boards off. Before I knew it, I had no shelter and a big pile of lumber and the clouds overhead were threateningly black with snow. I quickly took a few more boards off.

With the shelter completely taken apart it occurred to me then that perhaps the most important aspect about having a BBQ that burns wood as fuel is that it requires wood. I also noted that I happened to have a big pile of wood that used to be my shelter. Using more complex mathematical formulas, I figured that if I just burned the shelter I could grill a lot of steaks. Sometimes, failure is a lot easier to stomach when said stomach is filled with steak.

an ambitious project

Those of you who know me are well aware that my two passions in life are: 1. Building things and 2. Complaining about building things. History has shown that this is called, “The cycle of life.” Even way back in caveman days, Neanderthal Man would stomp around in his furry toga exclaiming, “I’m tired of living in this cave! I need to improve my life by building a house!” And then his nag of a wife would shriek at him, “Quit stomping around and build it already because this moist cave air is causing my hair to go all fuzzy and it’s clashing with my toga!” And so the cave man would build a house with primitive tools (Philips screwdriver) and for each step of the project, he would complain bitterly about various mishaps that slowed the project down like rampaging Mastodons or the neighbor’s saber toothed tiger that poops on his lawn. Thus, as history tells us, those Neanderthal houses were never built and normal dwellings did not appear until the 1950’s.

If we fast forward to today, we can see that things have not changed all that much and Life will throw you many curves and occasionally a fastball just outside the strike zone. What I’m alluding to is the fact that I recently found myself faced with the need to improve my living conditions by building something. I built a shelter just outside the back door on top of my huge throbbing deck. The purpose was to have a “smoking shack”, a place where I could go to smoke a cigarette, protected from the elements. Before you envision some grand Taj Mahal of smoking shelters, let me dash those foolish visions before you get carried away. It was a shack. I built it out of left over lumber from other, more ambitious, projects. It was made from 4x4 posts and 2x4 studs and it had a flat roof. Now, as many of you with architectural knowledge can attest, a flat roof poses many challenges. For instance, when it snows, that snow will stay there until someone, like the idiot who built it, has to climb on top of a bench or a chair or his tiptoes and attempt to shovel it off. Another challenge is that the stupid squirrel who lives in my backyard loved to run across it, back and forth, back and forth, BACK AND FORTH with his noisy little feet and driving me crazy. Plus, the dog will stand there, fur bristling like a caveman’s toga, barking at the squirrel like a banshee (I know banshees are known for screaming but their bark is equally annoying).

Another problem with the shelter is that it was built right next to the house, and coming out of the house was my newly installed furnace’s vent pipe, shooting out carbon monoxide and napalm and agent orange and whatever else the building inspector said. So, unless I wanted to turn my shack into some kind of noxious gas hot box, I could not use it for its intended purpose.

I had 3 options: 1. I could dismantle it. 2. I could move it to a nearby location. 3. I could drag the 600 pound monstrosity across the deck, remove the walls to “lighten it” to a manageable 599 pounds, get it onto the gravel driveway, around the fire pit to the BBQ area. Yes, number 3 was the way to go! I did so not because I love torturing myself, but because like my caveman friends, I love to BBQ, even in the dead of winter. I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a shelter to keep the snow off my precious BBQ, thus enabling me to perform my culinary acts all year long?”

Before you nod your head in sage agreement, perhaps you ought to be told that my BBQ is not some Home Depot propane unit. My BBQ burns wood. Some time ago my neighbor (who is a gifted welder) made me this meat grilling beauty and I have indulged myself in this timeless pursuit faced with nature’s elements. A shelter from the rains and winds and snows and squirrels was what I needed! In fact, BBQ shelters are sold at fine retailers, proving that many outdoor chefs have a need for these products. So resume nodding your head in agreement, ignoring the fact that the shelters sold at quality retailers are made out of metal and have a practical sloping roof.

In case you didn’t know, burning wood gives off sparks and heat. Having a flat, wooden roof directly over the sparks and heat could have posed some safety concerns. (Oh, did I mention that the roof was only 6 foot 5 inches high? Coincidentally the same height as me on my tip toes and not exactly a safe distance away from the sparks and heat.)

Because of my bad knee, I never jump to conclusions and I am a firm believer in the scientific method, where experimentation should first occur before attempting an action plan. I positioned the flat roofed shelter over the BBQ area and then lit the fire. I built up the fire nicely and stood there, squinting at the roof (squinting because even with the walls removed, my shelter was filled with smoke) and noticing that when I placed my hand on the roof directly over the flames that yes, it was indeed pretty hot to the touch. As the minutes passed, I kept checking the roof in various places, alternating between hanging myself over the flames and almost falling onto the BBQ at least 7 times. When the fire was at its apex, I couldn’t even hold my hand near the roof because of the intense heat. Because of my scientific nature, I was prepared for any conflagration with an array of fire fighting tools (a metal pokey thing that is used to stir the coals and my dog’s water dish, which was a solid block of ice). I let the fire (and my temper) burn down as I stood there pondering my options.

The sensible thing was to abandon my plans, that much is clear to me now but I was undaunted, filled with a burning (no pun intended) desire to have a roof over my BBQ. I could shell out the $500.00 for a properly built metal shelter but that decision would rob me of the joy of building it myself and since my neighbor won’t build me anything anymore because of the “leaves on the lawn” incident (which is another story altogether) I was on my own.

I decided that I would simply raise the roof and make it gabled (sloping) and that would require me to build some trusses (things that hold up the roof) but since I had more leftover lumber (from removing the walls) I was raring to go, filled with enthusiasm and what not. So after a few days consisting of doodling intricate roof truss drawings, watching TV, napping and snacking, I was ready to make my to-do list:

1. Remove old roof
2. Install new roof

(to be continued)