10/29

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37 this morning - inside. Usually not much different from outside.

We had rain all day yesterday. The barrels are full. Today is supposed to be sunny but never hit 60. I think tonight will be a hard freeze. The forecast for the fairgrounds tonight is 32, but we're always a few degrees cooler here, sometimes as much as 5, and it just feels like the right conditions with a clear sky and the cold the rain brings.

We ran our errands yesterday and got about 1/4 of the insulation put in for the ceiling. We ran a space heater a little before bed to take some of the edge off the cold. I was going to get an electric stapler for putting in the insulation, but I already have a Porter Cable compressor and set of trim guns. The stapler gun with 18 gauge 1/2" staples works great. The compressor hardly needs to kick in at all while using the gun. A fine mist of fiberglass gets everywhere even though the rolls are faced but that can't be helped.

I'm trying to get some photos of the chicken coop uploaded but having trouble and the DSL is incredibly slow. I may try uploading them in two seperate posts.

There's a ton of things to do today. I've got a lot of fertigation to catch up on after the rain, a massive amount of dishes to rinse and soak, the rest of the insulation to put up, we need to take a trip out to Jamestown for the 7" chimney brush and a bolt of muslin for facing the insulated curtains. Also our chimney order says the rest of the parts should come today - if they do we'll have to drop everything else to get it installed as we have a string of sunny weather for cutting a hole in the roof and not worrying about rain. Then with the hard freeze tonight we've got to cover all the lettuce and young chard with plastic jugs, and stretch a plastic sheet over beds 8 and 9 since we haven't had a chance to construct the low tunnels over them yet.

Yesterday we took Kitty to the animal shelter in Oak Ridge. We never had any luck with the ad we placed for her - nobody in the country wants stray cats or dogs. Usually shelters I avoid as euthenasia dens, and would prefer to drop an animal off in the city where they've got a good chance of being taken in [city people are far more pet-oriented then country people who are more livestock-oriented]. But this particular shelter was very friendly and pro-adoption . . . a woman took pictures of Kitty and they let her wander around . . . the animal-control officer at the desk had a kitten perched on his shoulder. It was $20 to surrender the animal. Not an ideal solution . . . but not much is when it's so common for people to drop strays off in the area and we in the country have to figure out a way to deal with them. We had Kitty for about 4 months, got rid of her worms, but she was never able to fit in here very well. She's an inside cat for sure, and in this small cabin we can't really offer her that. Besides her getting in to all the food on counter and table, peeing and pooing everywhere especially potted plants and chicken food, she climbed the building continuously and tore up the housewrap and screens, dug up and shit in the garden, and terrorized the birds. Yesterday we found a pile of duck down by the shed where she may have pounced one of the ducks. Hopefully they'll find a good home for her - we can call and check.

Well . . . too much to do today, got to get to work.
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