Days: 9, 10, and 11 (August 9, 10 , 11, 2022? Maybe?)

It is getting pretty slow and weird and hot here, but we are still taking steps, trying to move things forward, and using many, many screws.

Here’s a shot of sometime I think yesterday:

Lessons Learned:

1. Wow, this is hard work, and we are still here. I am waking up early to start on this project because the hours between 1-4 are HOT, and you have to get a jump start, but I am also bone tired at the end of the day. My bones are actually tired. I have no idea how people roof houses in the summer or pick my food.
2. We are making a quilt of windows, wood, and screen. I had some high-minded and long-winded thoughts about “bricolage,” but here’s the basic gist: each section is like a quilt square, and our job is to fit the pieces in with screws and a nail gun instead of stitching. High point today: using the stretcher bars our neighbor Jennifer left on the street so one part read “Greenwi” and the other part completes the sentence: “Greenwich ’48.” All the trash wood we collected to burn is suddenly useful, and the old hardware cloth and screen has a new life: reduce, reuse, recycle.
3. Neighbors are good. Robert went to meet ours and get permission to hop the fence, and they thought he was our contractor, not the homeowner, but that may have been related to the fact that Robert was wearing Jim’s toolbelt.
4. Screens: Rather than building a million tiny screens, as I have been doing, one big screen with lockdowns is better. Trust me on this—I know.
5. This is not the trip we usually take, but it is a trip. Will we get done in time? No. Have we enjoyed this? At times this has been as satisfying as any trip, the vistas of our yard transformed through windows into a new view, and I have felt the elusive tickling of a perfect moment, often when fitting a screen or finding exactly the right piece of wood, and this feeling resonates with me as the same feeling when you get a good campsite or have a good trip experience. Next year, I hope to take an actual trip, but this trip has taken me a long, long way.