With tears of joy...

After several days of de-shingling the roof, I'm glad to say the last load has been hauled away. One layer of shingles would not have been too bad, but we found 2 layers of roll roofing under there as well. The farmers (a.k.a. "The Boys") who did the work were kind enough to use spiral-shank roofing nails on the first layer, which I'd say are best removed with a stick of dynamite. Since our local hardware store no longer stocks explosives, we had to resort to prying them off one-by-one. I now see why the roof has survived 80 years of torture.... We were able to find a transfer station (the new, p.c. word for 'dump') that actually recycles shingles. It was 35 miles from the homestead and we had to pass two other transfer stations to get there, but it was the right thing to do. The pile that looks like black dirt in the photo is the ground up shingles that eventually get utilized as backfill by the St. Louis County road crews. It's not the way I had hoped they would be reincarnated- after all the extra effort to 'recycle' them, they're still going to be buried in the ground! At least they will serve a purpose, which is better than taking up space in a landfill... Lisa and I came up with a little contest, just to see if anyone actually reads our blog: The first blogger who correctly guesses (okay, within 50 lbs) the weight of all our barn's shingles wins a free nights stay in the guesthouse whenever it is finally built. Good luck!