Last night might have been the coldest so far, but the miracle of heat means the temperature in the house never sinks to freezing. I l the thermostats so low, it's always appropriate to wear my ancient fleece jacket inside, but as outdoor weather now calls for a jacket and gloves, I can pretend the house is warm and cozy.
Johnny and George were working on the front porch this morning, hammering frames around the windows. I noticed that both windows were open an inch or two at the bottom. Thinking perhaps that they had opened them due to some advanced theories of one sort or another, I stepped out to inquire.
Before I could say a word, George pointed to the open windows and declaimed "Heat Loss!" Exactly, said I.
They had not opened the windows. Had I left them open inadvertently? I distinctly remembered closing them several days before, but all things are possible. I closed them--but then, as Johnny hammered, they opened again.
"Aha," said George. "You didn't lock them!" Who knew? We worked our way around the living room. None of the windows were locked--affording cold air many tiny passages into the house. Some of them needed pounding, pushing and coaxing to lock properly. But now they are all more or less sealed. Of course, as all the siding is being removed, I am hardly well-insulated, but that too shall come to pass.
I spent many hours today washing the baseboards, and vacuuming the fins. I will soon write out a detailed explanation of this heating system--but for the moment I will only say the task of cleaning became less onerous when I brought the filthy baseboards out into the bright autumn sun to clean.
As I applied baking soda, vinegar, water and a few less savory cleaning agents, George and Johnny continued to hammer up the siding. What can I say? I was completely enamored with the aged and rotting dark brown clapboard, but have to admit that I am almost equally delighted with the green sheets of siding that are now covering it. I suppose anything is preferable to that old moldy vinyl siding, but I am surprised that I don't even mind Lowe's insulation as wall covering. After all this labor, I took a long walk. Now that the undergrowth has died, I managed to walk all around the lake and up through the back field. I avoided the swampy ground in back of the house by making a wider circle and emerged, after jumping over a few tiny streams, into the field that borders the driveway.
As I continued out towards the road, I bumped into Susie, my neighbor in the yellow house. I'd showed her and her husband Wayne the house a few days after I arrived, and I brought her back for a tour of the improvements. I was pretty impressed myself.
Then couldn't avoid the swamp of dreary election returns.
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