xtcian

12/1/02 These stretches of time

12/1/02

These stretches of time we spend here at the farm will soon be considered "restful" one day, but not for a while. Besides, I'm not sure if I'll ever truly desire restfulness, at least not before I'm 60. In the meantime, this blasted place is way too cold, so I set about to insulate the basement ceiling some weeks ago to keep us from seeing our breath on nights like this (18F).

Insulation is almost always the worst stuff on earth, combining fiberglass and god-knows-what space-age polymers that are best kept behind a drywall for fifty years without being disturbed. However, there's this new stuff from Owens-Corning (who, by the way, hosted the recent North Carolina victories at MSG) that feels more like a rolled-up sleeping bag, and is meant for tyros like me who don't own an oxygen mask. The problem is, nothing on Earth, due to gravity, is fond of being stuck to the ceiling. Hoisting these large rolls aloft, and then trying to staple-gun them into place, has taken WEEKS of backbreaking labor and a Buddha-like patience.

Today, we tried tackling the most forbidden place on the whole farm: the basement underneath the library room. Unfinished and left as dirt in 1860, it feels as though a human skull may become unearthed at any time. A small crawl space lurks in the nether regions, making it truly the duodenum of this house's digestive system.

Tessa helped me put some pipe insulation deep in there, then asked if I wanted her to staple the blanket insulation as well. And with the dog barking, the temperature plummeting, and the rolls of Owens-Corning spilled out to her side like a giant tongue, she actually lay in that pile of ancient dirt and did it:

Of course, the dog wasn't too thrilled about the staple gun, leading him to thrash around in the basement mud and the pools of leaking groundwater. By the time we were done with the job, Tessa and I were covered in guck, coughing up brown fluids and unable to think straight. Short of re-roofing with tar on an August day, I think we just completed The Worst Job Possible at the Farm.

So we spent the night on the couch with mouths open, feet up, watching Legally Blonde.