Sunday, December 5, 2010. Puttering Foodlessly. Last night was much colder than the night before, and that's just the beginning. We are heading into several days of temperatures in the twenties. My house-winterizing ritual is running late, as usual. I spent a good deal of the day on that. First I had to replace the outdoor faucet, which has been broken for over a year and held in check with a gizmo too flimsy for freezing temperatures. Then I hacked away the underbrush blocking the crawl space in back of the house. A lot of this is wisteria, originating from a very aggressive, twenty-year-old vine clear on the other side of the house. It sends colonizing runners through the crawl space. When it emerges into the light, it grows up everything.
The defoliation is necessary before I can hang tarpaulin skirts to block the free flow of wind under the house. This makes a tremendous difference inside. Mary Ann hates the way it looks, but it's too late for her to fight it now. The skirts are now a tradition, even involving the children. For a number of years, Jude did this job. But Jude ain't here no more.
The final project--since I was already doing a little plumbing--was to replace the washer in the leaky hot faucet in my bathroom. I must do this annually. This time, I also needed a new seat--the brass fitting that the washer butts up against. The acidity of our well water eats through the brass. Changing the seat is an every-five-year operation, so it gave me extra satisfaction to get it done. What I really ought to do is install a filtration system that neutralizes the acidity of the water.
I thought about going out for a bite to eat, but I saw two quarters of a Bosco's muffuletta Mary Ann bought earlier in the week, and did in one of the. Then I jumped into the bottomless pit of website work until I could no longer focus my eyes.
