Editorial 7.5, May 2005, by Deirdre Helfferich A Bug-Free Zone There’s no such thing, of course, not in the Great Alaskan Outdoors in the summertime. But my husband and I are trying to get a Bug-Reduced Zone, anyway, also known as an enclosed porch. Our porch has always been a sad sort of affair, featuring peeling paint and rotting wood, from pretty much the day we bought the place. Dripping water from the roof had done a job on it. Between the ravages of fungus and carpenter ants, the porch became gradually less and less functional and more and more dangerous, until the great gaping holes connected by deceptively solid-looking plywood had to be covered with sturdy planks so that there was somewhere we could walk without breaking our necks. A recent visit from Kate Billington made it clear to me that Something Had to Be Done, and soon: she made the error of stepping off of the planking on to the regular flooring only to have it sag precipitously. Fortunately, she’s fairly quick-footed, and leapt back onto the plank before another hole was added to the collection. Also fortunately, she didn’t break her ankle and sue me for hospital expenses. “Oops,” I said, cleverly. “We’ve gotta do something about that.” Well, now we are doing something about it. The Grand Construction Project has begun. My husband, being a carpenter, and this being high building season, had to take time off work in order to do it. But aside from that major expense, we are economizing. The huge piles of lumber were rummaged through (this is quite a feat—those piles of lumber are five feet high), wood found and planed and sanded and routed, more wood purchased, miscellaneous tools and parts and necessary stuff dug out from their hidey-holes or bought from the local supply store, and—last but not least—the shower doors gathered. Shower doors are made of safety glass. Our enclosed porch is going to have a transparent ceiling, but rather than purchase fiberglass wiffleboard, we decided to make use of a handy local resource. You wouldn’t believe how many people toss out shower doors when they get a few water spots on them. Shower doors aren’t cheap, but apparently putting a little elbow grease into cleaning the bathroom is just too much for some people to face, so they buy new doors, or maybe they give up and get plastic curtains. Who knows? There are tons of them out there, and my spouse (a.k.a. the Mad Recycler) hates to see them forlorn and unloved, so he brings them home. In the event of a tree falling on the roof (something that happened a few years ago), the glass will shatter into a thousand tiny pieces, rather than big jagged shards, and so, assuming the tree doesn’t first squash the porchsitter below, will not slice he or she into unpleasant carmine ribbons. Now, the problem with these doors is that they are no longer transparent, or even translucent. They’ve got so much mineral buildup and soap scum on them that not a few have become positively opaque. This means—you guessed it—physical labor. Lots of it. While my carpenter hubby ripped up the old flooring and replaced the joists, I got to scrub the tenacious white film off the shower doors he’d collected and sorted into various widths. Certain tools are necessary: scrub pads (those green ones that don’t scratch up the glassware), Bon Ami or some other nonabrasive cleanser, distilled vinegar, water and a bucket, and muscle. If you don’t have sufficient muscle before you start, you’ll develop it on the way, believe me. I’ve got sore parts in places I didn’t know I had parts. Our friend Jeff Rogers recommends hydrochloric acid to foam away that nasty calcium carbonate buildup, but I’m not partial to strong chemicals. I prefer the moral purification of scrubbing. It is sort of boring at first, until you get into a meditative scrub-trance. Round and round, up and down, back and forth, round and round...over and over and over, until finally the soap starts to dry up and get scrubbed off along with the scum. It is very satisfying to know that I am recycling and getting fit and helping to build my house, all at the same time. And cleaning! Somehow it all makes me feel very virtuous. And today, standing on the new two-by-six planking in the sunshine under our now halfway covered porch roof, contemplating the proper placement of bug screen, that inner warmth is augmented by an ever-so-slight outer warmth from the sun coming through the glass and getting, briefly, trapped, before the breeze whisks it away. I’m already planning where the potted plants will go in our new solarium. | ||
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