Stage One

Finished ahead of the cold front. The last area, under the various drains and service entrances involved a lot of cutting and fitting, so I took my time, longer than I expected, but the results are gratifying. I'm peeling off layers of clothes, as the house warms. Before I get too comfortable I put three gallons of water on the cookstove to heat, put on an outer layer and take a walk down the logging road. My phone is out, surely another dead-fall on Mackletree, so I don't know when I'll be able to post. Brutal, under the house, a couple of times I had to laugh. I looked like the village idiot, in my blue jumpsuit, duct-taped at the wrist and ankles and a sacrificial knit hat that I had picked up at a thrift store for a buck. The hat was Hunter Orange. No one wears orange well. And I was muttering, at first, then launching into full-scale tirades against anything that crossed my mind. To say I was contrary hardly skims the surface, but I was doing good and necessary service, and felt somehow ennobled by such direct contact with all the molds and literal crap that collects under a house. A lot of dead spiders and several small skeletons that I'm pretty sure were moles not mice. My neck is killing me, from the unnatural positions I had to assume. Crawl spaces are a form of hell, and I'm digging fiberglass out of every pore. Stage Two is exactly half done, take me and D four hours; Stage Three is me alone and should require just an hour, expanding foam to fill all the crevices. What I'm after, more than insulation numbers, is the complete absence of air infiltration from below. One reason igloos are effective, another is that a single walrus blubber lamp can bring temps above freezing so you don't freeze to death. Insulated by ice, how strange is that? Why did the Eskimo tribes go north, where the living is not easy? Those acorn eaters, along the corridor, were reputed to be cannibals, better to hang a sharp left and eat rain-deer than end up in the stew-pot. I don't have a calendar for next year, so I'm officially off the map after midnight. I don't care what day it is, as long as I have cream for my coffee. The rest of it is all nonsense. Time, we know, is relative. Insulation, in the corner of my eyes, is driving me crazy. I finally dunk my head in ice-cold water and wash the silt away. Fuck whatever protocol. Still no phone, talk with you maybe tomorrow, though that is doubtful, given the holiday, holed up on the ridge.