the animal's journal

[jacob]

Those roof anchors are great but have a plan if you actually do fall and are hanging off of the rope over the edge. Those metal roofs are treacherous if there is any moisture. I still have a dent in my roof where I fell . Thankfully it was on a shallow slope and I didn't go over. Anyway, if the fall doesn't kill you then the prolonged suspension in a shitty harness may so think about step two. You are physically fit so you should be fine. Another factor to consider is if you fall and the rope is dragged over the edge of the metal in a pendulum motion as your body seeks center of mass. It could easily cut your rope. You solve that by not creating a pendulum motion should you fall, as your anchor needs to keep your body in line with a potential slip.

Ha! Thanks for reminding me why I'm never going up on our roof

It reminds me of the Dumb ways to die parody song.

[Frita]

Lots of exciting things coming together, congrats! Paying off all student loans is a noteworthy milestone. The way they are structured, it’s easy to pay and pay. I know tenured, middle-aged STEM professors who are still paying off student loans while having the other eye on upcoming retirement. (Not comparing, the example is to illustrate.)

[AxelHeyst]

PSA adding to the roof discussion for people reading this now and in the future: my neighbor died last year falling off his roof. Be like @theanimal and @ffj: Take roof safety very seriously.

Your update is inspiring and real, @theanimal. Hope you get a mellow work tempo over the winter and start to ingrain those patterns and practices of embodying contentment in the midst of things being Not Done Yet.

[theanimal]

@Ego- Oh man, thank you. I'm not sure about hard mode but it's been quite the journey!. Support and inspiration from people like you has certainly helped keep me on track. The ability to see an array of different people on this forum just trying things and succeeding definitely goes a long way in bolstering confidence. It flies in the face of the societal narrative that we should just stick to our own knitting and leave things to the "experts".

@ffj- Thank you ! That means a lot coming from you. There were quite a few times in preparing to work up high/doing so that I tried to remember what you did on your house. Plenty of WWJD haha. I had two anchors up on the main roof spaced about 8 feet apart, largely in an effort to avoid any pendulum swings as you mentioned. The thought of the rope being cut by metal edges definitely crossed my mind a few times. Mrs. Animal was home about half the time I was working up high and I figured I could holler for a ladder if I did fall. One of my neighbors was also building this summer and was within shouting distance for the times she wasn't around. For a while I thought I could just use my phone and call for help from a different neighbor or friend if neither were available. That was until I dropped my phone off the roof one day and realized the foolishness of that idea.

Compound effort really pays off. A little bit every day goes a long way. As I think I mentioned before, I wrote much of my book during my daughter's naps, and the same has been true in building. Not ideal, but probably the best practice given the circumstances.

@Frita and @AxelHeyst
Thank you for the kind words!

PSA adding to the roof discussion for people reading this now and in the future: my neighbor died last year falling off his roof. Be like @theanimal and @ffj: Take roof safety very seriously.

And for anyone still unsure, one of Mrs. Animal's friends (who's 70 years old) fell off the roof this past spring while home alone. He crawled from the back of the house to the front trying to get to his phone in the garage. His wife came home about an hour later and found him in the driveway. He spent a week in the hospital with many broken bones and is still recovering.

[Western Red Cedar]

Congrats on the student loans. I remember feeling a big sense of relief after paying mine back. I love the drone shot of the house. It looks like it is coming along quite well.

[ffj]

@theanimal

When I was younger I once worked on a roof with another guy and we were tasked with painting the old metal roof with new silver paint. This guy would continuously paint all around him in a circle until he had a small spot unpainted around his feet and then he would jump from there to an unpainted section. It reminded me of a cartoon of painting yourself into a corner or cutting the branch that you are sitting on.

I was like "hey man, don't do that because if you step in that paint it's over" and he was like "no man, I got this, ain't nobody falling off a roof today".

O.K., back to work until I heard a scream and I turned to see this guy hurtling down the roof in the fresh paint. As he slid past me I managed to grab his hair, he had shoulder length hair, and yanked him trying to get him stopped but his hair ripped out of his head so I was left with a clump of hair in my fist as I watched him plummet off the edge of the roof. I'll give him credit as he tried to stick a landing but all he managed to do was land face first on the ground. He broke both wrists, his nose, and screwed up both knees, along with facial cuts and missing hair.

I've never fallen off of a roof but I once fell off of a cliff. In my defense the ground gave way underneath me on the edge and in an instant I was ass over teakettle falling down the embankment. I vividly remember having absolutely no control until I reached the bottom, about 60 feet.The only thing that saved me was that it was mainly dirt and it wasn't a true 90 degrees and I was able to hit something the entire way down. When I finally stopped I looked up from whence I had fallen only to see a small rock hit me in the forehead. Fuck that hurt.

What makes this story even better is that the reason I was standing on the cliff edge is because we (the rescue team) were looking for a lost hunter experiencing chest pains. So I cleaned the blood from my face, put my smashed glasses in a pocket, reassured my partner I was alright, and continued the search. Another team found him, but they rushed me over because they needed to extract him with rope and I was the rope guy. By this time my forehead is ugly swollen but we got the job done and got him out of the woods. That night my head was killing me and I started poking around on the wound and I felt something and it was a piece of rock under my skin. Once I pulled that out it started feeling better. No stitches and it healed up fine.

I don't know if there is a lesson to these stories other than gravity doesn't take a break. Oh, and these lanyard systems need a little forethought if they are to be effective. Sounds like you have that covered.

@Jacob

Oh my god, the little figure with boils covering them was killing me. It really shouldn't have been that funny. I don't know what it says about me that I found that hilarious.

[J_]

As you and your family lives so very nordic I wonder how you cope with lack of sunshine in the long winter.
How do you get enough vitamine D? Do you need “light therapie” to avoid somber feelings? Or do you travel south in these months more ?
My sailing friend who lived/ worked 10 years in Anchorage went every winter to Hawaii to compensate.

[theanimal]

Lack of sunlight in the winter is the most challenging aspect of living up here. The change is so fast, from early July until early December we are losing close to an hour per week of light.Here at latitude 65, our shortest day of the year is 3 hours and 42 minutes. Now nearly 4 weeks past solstice, we are still at just over 5 hours of light. Almost hard to believe that in ~3 weeks, we'll need to start wearing sunglasses. While the nights are lengthy, it never really is that dark here. Once the snow is on the ground, it reflects any visible light, leading to a much more lit landscape than say the deserts of the southwestern US. As such, while it is dark for long periods and there is minimal to no light pollution, this is not a great location for star gazing. It is generally too light to see many stars, including the milky way. That said, we have other astrological wonders like the northern lights, which can provide large displays overhead nearly every night throughout the winter. The snow also makes the moonlight brighter, to the extent that one could stand outside during a full moon and read a book without issue. There isn't much of it, but the light in the winter here is incredible and without parallel.


Biking with my dog on trails near my house under a full moon

However, these other sources of light are no replacement for the sun. The easiest remedy is going elsewhere during this time. For many Alaskans, like your friend, that means Hawaii. I've always gone to visit family in Chicago around the holidays, which can offer a nice refresher (despite the typical gray, midwestern winter climate). The difference is most apparent in sleep quantity/quality. During the winter, we are often sleeping much longer, while generally maintaining the same practices and habits of summer. As you can likely guess, summer is the exact opposite.





We supplement vitamin D (4,000-6000 IU/day), which helps maintain physiological function, but does nothing to mitigate the mental challenges. The use of "happy lights" is very common and we have a small one we use intermittently. It seems to help somewhat, but in my opinion is not very strong of an effect. The best practice I've found is to spend as much time outside as possible, especially when the light is out. This winter I've made an effort to get out in some capacity every day, whether walking, fatbiking or skiing. This goes along with the general advice I've heard others share for newcomers to the area. If you don't have something you can do outside during the winter, you will really suffer here. The cold takes some adaption if you're not accomodated to it, but I have not found it to be a limiter in terms of short term (<24 hrs) outdoor excursions.

[J_]

Animal, thanks a lot for your information and beautiful photo's. Baby animal looks soo happy, just like her father.

[thef0x]

That's a happy, adorable baby. Man -- feels like my own lil dude is impervious to the cold and Baby Animal looks no different. Just stoked to be out in it.

J_'s right, you both like you're having a blast. Cheers to that!