It's Roofing Time in Northfield. Aah, I remember how much I looked forward to Roofing Time when I was a kid. Every fall, the whole neighborhood would come alive with airpowered nail guns and roofers yelling in Spanish. For what seemed like an eternity, the enchanted rhythm of banging and the ROAR of air compressors would fill the air. Afterward, the magic moment: I would run around the yard in a flurry picking up all the nails and scraps of shingle I could find before the other kids snatched them up. Oh yes! Good times!

As some of you may know, southern Minnesota was struck with two waves of severe storms on Thursday, August 24th. The storms produced hail ranging from "golfball size" to "baseball size" with some "softball size" thrown in just to complete a summer sports trifecta.

Thank God we were spared the Nerf Football size hail!

Merle is an "older" man that lives across the street in a 105 year old home. His father built it and Merle grew up there. In fact, I think Merle was born before the final nail was put in.

Merle got his roof fixed this weekend. The roofers worked in the rain and did the job in about 2 days. This included all new plywood on his garage roof.

My roof was replaced last week. It took a day and a half, and the whole house looks like a million bucks.

Lillian, the 83 year old woman who lives next door to us, commented to Stace that "those Mexicans were making such a racket up there on Merle's roof!" She is getting her roof reshingled next week. I hope the roofers are Norwegian, because I'm sure they'll be very quiet.

Finally, Mike and Winnie live two doors down. They love their home. I know because they proudly display their indoor furniture, trash cans, and SEVERAL gas grills (in various stage of disrepair) right there on the front lawn all year 'round.

Mike is putting his new roof on himself. SO many things bad about this, I have to list them:

1. It rained hard the first day, shortly after he got the first few shingles off.
2. He covered his roof with a giant tarp. This included covering the hot water heater vent, and the vent for the furnace. No one died from this?
3. He had no building permit. He was shut down the second day.
4. He drove a large farm tractor on main roads to the home store to pick up his shingles.
5. On day 5 (yes day 5) he had only the back of the house stripped.
6. His teen daughters and their boyfriends are up there helping.

Since he started, 3 homes on my block have had roofs put on one after the other.