Our story so far: After moving into the mostly finished old church we had renovated into a home, we turned our attention back to the belfry which had decades-old structural issues—and a beautiful facade—under the newer aluminum siding.

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On Day 2 of belfry reconstruction, You-Can-Call-Me-Al spent the entire day vacuuming up decades of animal carcasses, nesting material and animal feces in the space between the interior ceiling on the second floor (where the trap door was, above the window) and the roof beneath the bell that Reroofer repaired the autumn before. You-Can-Call-Me-Al filled bag after bag of gross detritus. In every single corner, animals and insects had lived and died. This is where Stan the Squirrel—the mummified resident Tyler found when he first inspected the belfry—had lived and died. Many boards had been chewed away.

This cleaning was necessary so the men could see what they had to work with and what needed repair. They would also be using the floor in this anteroom as a staging area for tools, nails and lumber.

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Tomorrow: A ten-hour day. Read about it here.