Thawing our paws by the fire

Well friends, I am pleased to tell you that WE MADE IT!

There was a long faltering moment, or maybe it was more like a couple of weeks, when we felt just on the verge of throwing in the towel on this whole crazed notion and retreating to our house in Scranton (which has not yet sold), where the gas appliances hum and there is heat, running water, and Mexican takeout.

It was cold here, so very cold. The tent was no longer homey and inviting.

Waking up to temps in the low teens is a motivating situation. It makes you want to get the house insulated so you can move in. It is also dispiriting, which is interesting, isn't it? On the one hand you think, we're fucked. And on the other hand your last ember of optimism flares weakly with hope.

I have often thought to myself in recent weeks, you are like a cat on a rug in the sun. You are like a squirrel on a branch in a swaying breeze. You are like a sloth with a martini in your paw. When it is warm, you only want to curl up in the heat of the beautiful kind glowing world, and when it is cold you are like what the hell is wrong with me?! why didn't i store any nuts?

So many standards of civility and hygiene go by the wayside when all the buckets of water are frozen, the dish soap is frozen, your fingers are numb, and the path to the spring is icy and  treacherous and sharp. Outdoor baths, dippered from a dutch oven brimming with hot water, are romantic and lovely in the summer landscape. In the winter those baths hurt and make me cry, even when taken in the washtub in the tent in front of the electric heater.

Which is why I took to relieving this tragedy by telling Matt my funny story called We Are Two Dirty Trappers. (I just finished reading a historical novel with a trapper in it, and this trapper was a filthy, foul, wretched individual.) When Matt says, do we need to wash a dish?, I say, no! we are two dirty trappers! Because a trapper would only have one frying pan, and he would eat breakfast, lunch and dinner from it, with no cleanings in between, if he were lucky enough to have such a round assortment of meals. He would drink his dram of rum and be content with a sputtering campfire before him and the weather and the wolves at his back.

But all that - the wishing we'd built this house faster, the living as two dirty trappers - that's in the past! I am typing to you from inside our toasty new home, where the fire flickers sweetly. The house is insulated! It has no sheet rock or running water yet, but that will come in time, and we will heat water on the stove for washing ourselves and our dishes until that day. I am just very glad to be warm and dry.

Besides the actual insulation project, which took some time (we covered the interior stud wall with special fabric and rented a machine to blow dense-pack cellulose behind that), there was a long and fraught ditch-digging saga. I will not go into detail regarding the tractor breakages that occurred, I'll just give you the happy news that our well pump is in, our water, power and phone lines are run underground to the house, and all trenches have been refilled. Shit's not all hooked up yet, but we're close.

We have a house! 'Tis the season for feeling thankful, and I am so very thankful for this new wooden box. Our most excellent family and friends helped greatly with this project, and I'm very thankful to them, too. I will try to stay on task with Matt and complete the drywall, so that we can all celebrate together soon. I will not heap up my wool blankets on the hearth in front of the wood stove, and I will not hollow out a small nest for me in the center, and I will not arrange my coffee and my pencils and my tower of books and paper so all can be reached from within. Not just yet.