The rain has just started, plattering down on the hard plastic of fans and skylights. I'm sipping just brewed coffee, and Kate snores softly behind the sliding door to the bedroom. The rain is a cheerful sound, though it's a grey day out there. My feet are cold, but I'm to have slippers for my birthday, and some of those thick grey worker socks I imagine are de rigeur on the pipelines.
Dallas is just stirring, occasionally raising her carpet-rumpled face for a touch, and blinking blearily. She's doing much better in this cool weather than she has all summer, and lately she's taking to a half run and much happy tail-wagging on our walks. I'm beyond grateful for this time with her, and the more so after such a hard 12th year. She's doing wonderfully.
We have begun insulating the trailer for an Ontario winter. I think this must be the craziest thing I've ever contemplated doing. Talking to Mom last night, she said, "I knew a girl who froze to death in a trailer once..., but I think she was trying to...". Ahh, welcome words of comfort.
We've brought home window wrap, silver bubble-pad type insulation for windows (removable, so we can still enjoy the daylight), hard pink insulation to wedge between ground and trailer as a windbreak, a groundsheet for frost, and bags of Roxul R22 insulation to be inserted under our floors. We make up bags to equal an R66 value, and then stow them thickly, hoping to keep pipes from bursting and floors from feeling too cold. We'll also heat and insulate the water line, and a remote thermostat will tell us when to activate a ceramic space-heater near the pipes. Area experts were consulted on our designs, and now neighbours are nodding their approval. We've been assured we'll be toasty and cozy in here, but our main worry is to be condensation.
We've been researching how to keep water from forming, so we don't eventually end up with mildew- the bane of winter campers. I worry about ice-storms freezing up our roof vents, and insufficient air-flow. I have my eye on a strange-looking parabolic fan that moves the air and heats it at the same time. If this sounds too simple, just factor in a mere 30 amp connection, and know that we're already tripping our fuses as we learn, for example, that the hallway heater and percolator won't operate simultaneously.
On top of all this, I continue to scheme how a vestibule may be managed. Dallas takes her sweet time getting in or out, and I visualize searing, -20 laced winds darting past cotton pajama defenses inflicting mean pinches as they pass. My pet design is one of stacked hay-bales on either side of our door, providing a wind break, and allowing a tarped roof to be erected overhead. I'm not sure how to make this work, but I won't rest until something like it is attempted. I also know better than to build it myself. If I mention it enough times, either Kate will get the hint and figure out a proper way of doing it, or she'll leap into action when I actually start assembling materials, threatening to construct something myself.
We might also stack a few flats to create a stoop, which I could then launch Dallas out onto. Of course you can't have a stoop at the door without the roof, or we'd likely find ourselves prisoners of an ice-storm. Headline: "Tragedy in Trailer, Trio suffocates in aluminum ice-box!"
Such are my thoughts as I turn 39, "the last birthday of your life," quipped one hilarious friend. I look around some mornings, astonished to find myself off the corporate grid, living on the fringe as it were, and free to pursue my creative projects. Most astonishing of all, I have someone who wants to be part of this madcap adventure. "Two someones," Dallas' crumpled, furry head lifts accusingly to remind me.
