The tile starts to go in place.

Like any tile project the full tiles go fast but cutting edges and making gables, ridges and valleys takes time and talent. Patric and Eric are good at the field placement but not so hot on the details. Our French workers do not understand that when you break a tile it can be used later to cut, they simply grab a new tile and cut off the corners rather than using the broken ones. It is very hard to determine from a huge stack of tiles just how far it will spread on the roof but soon it becomes clear that we will not have enough. We start to develop a system. I load the tiles in the bucket of the Manitou then drive to the house lift the bucket right into the back pockets of Patric and Eric. Patric hands them to Eric and he places them on the roof. It dawns on me that I am lifting every tile and they sit and wait while I drive back and forth to the stack. They take a cigarette break while I load all by myself. Clever these French “workers”. It only takes me about half of the roof to get the big picture and then have Patric and Eric alternate coming down in the bucket to help me load.