Rainstream
Sundays are supposed to be slow days. Days spent at home relaxing before the return of the stressful work week. Sundays at Boxes in Fields are like any other day of the week. Work. At least here lately they have been just work. On the Sunday while the the Planner was welding the metal door frame on the Shop Box, the Kid was doing whatever nine-year boys do, I decided to get out the ever trusty old toothbrush and scrub baseboards. It hadn’t been done in months and months and I decided that particular Sunday was the day. Yes, I really do scrub the baseboards with a toothbrush. It is very therapeutic. Three adults, one doggo, open air windows, and living in a construction sand site means dirt. Lots and lots of dirt. Combine all four of those factors into a living space just over 100sft and the level of dirt goes from ugh, dirty hairballs to a creature on all its own who is overtaking the occupants in a flash.
Working from the back of the trailer I forward, I decided to clean under the bed first. This requires the removal of all clothing storage boxes, a headlamp, and some yoga moves to get into the crawl space at the far back. Just as I was climbing under to remove the last box I noticed a stain on the door frame. With the Planner and the Doubter plans for all that busy week with the Beam Me Up Outside, there was just no time to fix the issue.
Sunday after Bean Me Up Outside, we finally got around to fixing the leak. What started out as a stain turned into a major water leak from the shower. The corner seal had a small tear, maybe two inches, at the height of my shoulders. The entire bathroom was removed of old caulk with the use of a razor blade and fine tip pick. It was tedious and tiring. Tag teaming the job, I removed old caulk and the Planner installed the new.
Needing to assess the damage, a 3″ hole was drilled into the wall of the bathroom cabinet allow full view of the space behind the shower below the seat. All was dry and dusty. Crawling into the under the bed storage space to pull out the most inconspicuous floor vinyl strip, the Planner made a heart sickening discovery. Wet, soggy under flooring.
How I never noticed the coloring difference between the wall of the shower and the bathroom door itself is beyond me. The more floor was removed, the more the damaged was observed. This would explain why the storage door had not been shutting correctly. And to think I blamed the dog for laying against it every night. Poor doggo-head.
The entire bed storage, bathroom, and kitchen area were removed of the laminate and plywood underlay exposing the weather treated 3/4″ plywood base. Gonna take several weeks for this to dry out before new flooring can be installed. Good grief what a mess.
What was gonna be several weeks has turned into maybe a month. The rainstream attacks once again! And here you thought we lived in a 1968 Airstream. Nope, it is rainstream. Let me explain how an Airstream is designed: layers of thin aluminum overlapping layers of thin aluminum held together in place with rivets and sealed with caulk. When things get old, water seeps in between the layers resulting in leaks in a thousand different directions. Water wicking is an amazing. Did you know water can wick up a vertical line? It’s true. Google it.
Monday a late season cool front rolled through. As usual to cool fronts is was predicated by a rain. By noon Monday everything was a swampy mess yet it rained and rained. The rainstorm on Tuesday was quite a show. There was lightning. There was thunder clapping. There wind. There was lots and lots of rain both inside and out. It lasted forever. How come storms like this only ever happen in the wee hours of the morning? Even taking refuge in the under the bed storage the dog had fitful night’s rest and slept all Wednesday morning at work with me as result. She slept so hard I thought she was dead! Seriously. The mail lady came by and she didn’t move. A co-worker came into the office and she didn’t move. The only thing she did in a three hour period was move her foot.
Upon closer inspection, her nose was cold and wet. Whew. While the dog was sleeping at work, the Planner was stuck in the rainstream. Towels under every window and shoved next to the door. Towels on the floor to catch the water running in from the roof vents. Towels to collect water dripping in from who knows where. What does this means for us? Well, when the weather clears up, it means every caulk seal on the outside must be stripped and re-caulked. Very time consuming and labor intensive. Yuck, yuck, yuck.
When the rain finally started to dry out on Thursday, some of the most amazing tracks were discovered. Just in this one picture, there are neighbor dog prints, raccoon prints, and something creepy dragging who knows what prints. Space aliens? Space aliens seem to be the standard default answer for all things unexplained at Boxes in Fields.
The week may have started out as a soggy mess both inside out, Boxes in Fields was rewarded for their resilience when Thursday evening closed out with the most spectacular sunset ever.
Maybe finally with dry weather ahead the trailer will dry out so the floors can be repaired. On a side note, the water that normally covers the driveway seems to finally have found a path of removal with the help of the tractor, the Doubter, and the Planner. Yeah. This means I can park less than a quarter mile away and not have to slug through ankle deep muck to get to and from the house. It is the little things in life, right?