Posted on February 9, 2010 - by Hubba

Winter Work

This winter I have been helping a neighbor insulate his shop.

We began by installing new clear skylights.  Actually he did that and I handed him stuff from about halfway up the ladder.  I get dizzy on a tall horse.

Then we went inside to begin the insulation process.  I think in the beginning, the idea was to shuffle the contents of the shop around out of the road as we went along.  It didn’t take  long however to realize that wasn’t going to work.  This shop has been around for 23 years, and has accumulated stuff accordingly.  A person’s possessions are like government; they expand to fill the allotted space.

And so I began purging the shop of its contents.  Several generations of lubricants and oils, two cycle gasoline, cans of paint from the Nixon administration, a mind boggling array of tools, enough steel to rebuild the World Trade Center, hand tools, extra handles for hand tools, buckets, broken stuff (that stuff you hope will magically repair if you ignore it) etc. etc.  All on top of a base layer of dirt, metal filings, and cat poop.  I have been stuffing all of this stuff into every nook and cranny of every other building on the place.  Thank heaven for my excellent training in creating space during my employment at Wall Drug so long ago.

But we’re slogging away, and it’s looking really nice.  And it’s an indoor job, which counts for something this winter.