Please read Part 1 if you haven’t already. That one sets the next three-day scene!

Matt cleaning up, was truly almost with surgical precision!

Friday, Matt (my son) and I made our plan and how to carry it out. We needed contractor bags, and mapped out where to put everything. Not much in the way of cleaning got done out there Friday besides getting a game plan together. Saturday morning (not any time too early too be decent for a Saturday), Matt and I headed to Rattlesnake to begin cleaning. I would like to be officially recorded as divulging that I am just so thankful that this past weekend’s activities of cleaning are over with. There.

We had to stop and gather materials before we left to go out there. We got contractor bags, a garden rake, my Dad’s bolt cutters (just in case we ran into and issue with any metal), Matt’s dagger “Jimbo from Jimbobway,” my Claudia Van, safety glasses, masks, and heavy duty gloves. We had 16 contractor bags when we began. They were gone in no time at all, and we switched to the smaller bags like normal people use for their everyday trash. We went through several of those as well.

Lunch Break!

This is what the main pile that had to be separated looked like with the ducts gone. Still intimidating.

We stopped and came back to the office for lunch since our food is here (my fridge went out. I probably haven’t shared that yet, but now you know), and mostly I was on bag duty when we got back. My knees, ankles, and back are in pretty bad shape from all of the horse injuries and a bad wreck a few years ago. Matt knew when everything started hurting for me and I started slowing down, and that excellent kid that he is, got me to just sit and hold the bags open. I would do that for a while, catch another wind, and do other things. Of course we were doing a lot with fiberglass, so we were itching like crazy by the end of the day.

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Thankfully, the title to this post is only a metaphor. Her “skin” in this instance is all of the construction debris that she has been surrounded by for so long, especially in the carport/entry. It looks bad, it was taking up much needed working space for the contractors, and all of that insulation was perfect for critters to create homes and hang out in.

I could just barely squeeze her under there, but she made it before the clean up even started.

Mice look for places to build homes, snakes look for mice. I did see a snake out there while cleaning. Most likely a rat snake, and in true Mandi fashion, I just said, “You don’t want none, bruh.” I don’t know if it was the words, the look on my face, my entire demeanor, or happy chance, but it went the other direction. Most likely it just couldn’t be bothered with someone who still says things to snakes like, “You don’t want none, bruh.” I am not terribly afraid of snakes, within reason.

Back to what I was talking about before the snake whispering thing. The clean up! This task did not look like it would be nearly as intense as it ended up being, at first. I knew just how much stuff was there, but had grown so used to seeing it, that it was more like furniture. Do you know what I mean? Hopefully you do not.

All of the old fiberglass “cotton candy” insulation has been taken out. So much old lumber was in the carport, and all of the ducts from the failed HVAC system (which also contained fiberglass “cotton candy”) had taken up residence under the carport. There were also scraps of the spray foam insulation that had been scraped off of the studs, and other areas that needed more attention than we anticipated at first. That stuff blows like nobody’s business, and it gets everywhere. It is like the glitter of insulation, in my opinion.

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