Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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Like my brownhouse:
   insulating the drywell
Thursday, November 19 2009
Rain fell at times today, increasing in the afternoon as warm air drifted in. Gretchen had originally planned for us to celebrate the conclusion of a class she had been teaching in a local prison by having another meal at the new Indian restaurant in Kingston. This time we'd dine in the afternoon to see what the buffet was like.
The same guys were staffing the buffet as we'd seen staffing the dinner hours, although the owner wasn't there. Unlike other Indian buffets I've taken advantage of, there were plenty of vegan-friendly options in this one. There was also a big pot of mulligatawny soup, something this restaurant has really mastered. As for the food, it wasn't as good as the stuff we'd ordered in non-buffet hours, though this might have been a function of buffet degradation, which happens to a pot of curry when it is set out on a heater for several hours (we'd come to the buffet late).
While Gretchen was at her weekly one-on-one guitar lesson in Uptown, so I ran off to Home Depot to get a few brownhouse supplies, including a couple large sheets of styrofoam to insulate the subsoil just outside the brownhouse basement and above the brownhouse drywell.
Albany Avenue is a bit slower than even I'd imagined it, and what should have been a half hour errand ended up taking an hour, so poor Gretchen had to hang out at the guitar shop with the owner and his new dog. (Sally and Eleanor were with me.)

Back at the house, I laid down an inch of styrofoam atop the ground just north of the brownhouse, continuing it out over the drywell, which is about four feet north of the brownhouse. I then buried all the styrofoam under leaves and a few rocks. Eventually I'll be adding more rock and soil to change the grade a bit. The drainage from the brownhouse sink and urine system isn't very deep and this styrofoam will be necessary to keep it from freezing.


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