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The Gods of Natural One-by-Something

Fascia.  Fascia:  wooden board, orsome such thing, covering the ends of rafters.  
On a rectangular building--that is to say, on a building a normal person might build using rectangular pieces of wood, such as 2X4s-- the ends of the rafters march off toward the horizon in a straight line.  The fascia is, then, a long, straight board.

On a round building, the rafters extend from a center point like spokes on a wheel, which requires that the fascia be a kind of hoop.  Nobody cuts hoops from long, straight trees, or even from short, crooked trees.  They cut . . . oh, 1X4s, for instance.  OK, I thought, I will choose a 1X4 cut from a tree with a morally stout soul, and bend it carefully into a hoop.

The first one snapped at the mere suggestion that I was going to violate its rectangular soul.  So did the second one, from a different forest and moral family of trees.

Well, thought I, I will take my commitment to solidity and stoutness in hand, and use thinner materials:  pine trim, for instance.  The first one sent toothpicks far up the hillside.  But I am nothing, if not stubborn.  I found sixteen foot-long pine trim that I could trim a bit, and using more jerry-rigged contraptions than a self-respecting carpenter will admit to, made the flimsy fascia begin its journey back to the beginning.  The second piece did its duty, too.  All I had to do was to climb up and down a couple of ladders about a thousand times, doing my best to imitate myself and the other guy I wished I had to help me.

Five feet remained unfasciated when I ran out of materials.  No matter:  Home Depot is only three or four miles away.  The final piece snapped!  But I am no dummy:  I bought ten feet the second time, willing to waste five feet rather than run to Home Depot again.

The second five-footer snapped, too, on the last screw holding it in place.  I have a growing pile of expensive kindling.  But the day is only half-gone, and the third, final, five-foot piece is in place, unsnapped!  I dare not take off the clamps used to pull it into place, fearing that the gods of natural one-by-something lumber will take their revenge, but fascia I have, clamps and all.

So far.

I have no intention of removing the clamps.  The clamps belong to Stan, anyway.  He has a lot of clamps, or he used to.  I am turning my attention to rehydration:  beer, in fact.  

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