Laboring Day

Back in action. Monday, Labor Day, we were in the basement and stapling up transfer plates in the morning. It had taken some time to get down there; I spent much of the morning fighting off the temptation of just walking around the sunny yard, ducking into the woods, or cutting down ailanthus.

So yeah, time to staple these things up under the house. All under the house. Basement through crawl spaces and back again (and again, and again...). We decided that it would be wisest to start with the 5th circuit, the one furthest from the entrance and also the hardest with all that routing through our crazy bathroom floor frame and plumbing. Our strategy was to work on two circuits simultaneously, with Erika handling circuit 4 and me handling circuit 5. This way, we'd always be side by side more or less, so we'd always have the tools in one place, and we'd move from crawl space to crawl space together. The one exception would be the back crawl space since it's divided lengthwise by the kitchen sink drain pipe and the main waste removal pipe, neither of which can be easily maneuvered across. So for that space, Erika would take the front half and me the back half and we'd help each other with both circuits.

We put together a tray of supplies, ran the extension cords so that we'd always have a light on and waiting for us, and stapled and stapled and stapled. I think I use an average of 18 staples per plate and Erika averages 12, just for trivia.

Not much else to say. Stapling is done mostly on our backs. Stuff falls in your eyes and you get really dirty. A couple of spiders and a mystery grasshopper/roach lost their lives.

We spent 9 hours crawling in and out, dragging our bodies with our arms, going to the basement and back up, kneeling on hidden rocks, but we pretty much got both circuits done that day, which is great. I say "pretty much" because right at the very end, we put a staple through the tubing.

Whoops!

It's on a bend, too. But I figure we can just cut the damaged tubing out and replace it with a 90 degree fitting and be on our way.

We rewarded ourselves by rolling down the hill for a margarita and some tacos.

- John