As God is My Witness, I'll Never Be Itchy Again!

Finally.

There's a bit of insulation I never got around to installing in the Lair, because, well, I dreaded it. It's the part of the side walls between the main stretch and the rather radically pitched roof, and I put it off so long that I only made things worse for myself by installing interior walls for the bathroom that are really in the way, and crowded the rest with a bunch of other stuff that's always in the way.

But I got'er done today, and that's the very last of the insulation. Didn't really have enough fiberglass batting to do the job before I tore down the old pantry house, and most of that was in pretty rough shape, which meant I needed to cut intact pieces out of every old strip and fit them into place on the walls. But it was doable, since most of what those wall sections needed was pretty small. So today the insulation is finally DONE! AT LAST! DONE AT LAST! THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, I"M DONE AT LAST!

I also got a good start on installing the toilet - though I'm gonna be digging the whole damned septic system out by hand if I can't find out what's wrong with the tractor's clutch. Got the hole cut in the floor for the flange, then climbed under the cabin and dug out the trench with an old entrenching tool, which in our "soil" was every bit as fun as it sounds. But it's done now, and I'm ready to lay pipe.

Four things I need now, to render the cabin minimally habitable for winter: Treads for the loft ladder, wood stove, kitchen sink and stove, and toilet. M called me last night, though, and told me the pipe flanges for the pipe treads I was going to use would cost me $150 - just for the flanges. Well, that ain't gonna happen. But I can still make treads out of 2X6's laid on 2X4's, and though it's a poor second-best that's probably what I'll do. If I find a source of flanges later, I can always install pipe treads later. I haven't been able to get into the loft with anything other than a ladder since I put up the interior panelling, and there's no way I'm doing that all winter. A ladder takes up pretty much the whole damned open part of the cabin.

The toilet's the hard part, because of all the damage Monsoon did to my septic pit and trenches. But if I've gotta dig, then dig I must. Of course I'll try to fix the tractor first, but so far the only information I've been able to find on the clutch in the service manual is that it's got one. I knew that, and can't believe that's all there is in the book. So I must be missing something; I'll bring the other volumes up from the Meadow House where M left them and try again. I don't even know if the thing's hydraulic or mechanical, though I see no sign of a hydraulic cylinder external to the transmission. But if it's mechanical, why would it suddenly not work? It worked fine when we parked the tractor for maintenance work.