Tar without feathers

Last weekend I spent part a sunny spring day trying not to be covered in tar.

The roof of our new chicken coop, see Chicken Coop, leaks (I may  have mentioned that building roofs is not our strong point). We might have to redo the metal panels but decided to try covering the nails and seams with yet more roofing tar first.

I climbed up onto the roof and wielded the putty knife with as much precision as possible, which is to say, not very precisely at all.What is it about this stuff? No matter how careful you are, it gets everywhere you don't want it to. At least this time I didn't end up sitting in a glop of tar.

Tar is useful, if smelly, stuff. Pine tar is good not only on bats but can be put on wounds on animals--on chickens it will keep other birds from pecking at the sores (but it also sticks to feathers and coats and fingers--I've switched to Bluekote which also stains but at least it isn't sticky).

And everytime I use tar, I come away thinking of the LaBrea Tar Pit or Brer Rabbit. I'm hoping this dinosaur won't need the stuff again anytime soon.