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imagining a shitslide
Sunday, October 18 2009
After a night of drying of the glue between its laminations, the shit hatch for the brownhouse was ready to install. It fit so snugly in its hole that I didn't feel any urgent need to devise a latching system to hold it in place. That could easily change. The smell of human shit is surprisingly compelling for members of the family Canidæ (particularly an individual who goes by the name Eleanor), and a worst case scenario might include some dog clawing the shit hatch loose and then pulling that trashcan o' feces over onto its side. A shitslide is not something you learn about in school, but it is nevertheless something to be feared and prevented.
In other brownhouse advances, I finished applying styrofoam to the interior walls of its basement and then made cut some false rafters and little rectangles of plywood to completely seal all the entrances to the upstairs "cabin." Eventually I'll be putting fiberglass insulation between the studs, but first I'll need to further develop aspects of brownhouse functionality.
At some point I went down the Stick Trail a short distance with the Stihl chainsaw and cut up most of two trees that had fallen across the trail. (Our neighbor Tommy, who likes to mountain bike these trails, had already partially cut one of the trees to reopen the trail.) Both of these trees were somewhat further afield than my normal range for the exclusively-human-powered gathering of firewood, but after three years of tree salvaging, all the good stuff close by is gone. I was using a brand new saw blade and I'd actually put it on the right way, and I was delighted by how quickly I could rip through large pieces of oak. It made me think that firewood harvesting might be a bit easier this winter. This was, I should mention, my first instance of gas-powered firewood cutting for this heating season, which is pathetic since every heating season I always swear to myself I'll start cutting wood for the next season the spring before.
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