Just a little too much of a good thing.

Spring is coming, finally... Now comes mud season which is an annual event on the farm. Farmhouses used to be commonly built with mud porches. Many city homes often were too. Many times the mud porch was an unheated room and often it was wooden walls just one board thick. Most of the time it was not insulated and sometimes the snow sifted in through the cracks. I have not very nostalgic memories of shoving my young feet into chore boots that were at times below zero inside to go out to feed the livestock.
I now, in retirement, live in the house that I grew up in from age 8 until I got married. Back then it was 4 rooms totaling about 1300 square feet, a long narrow unheated back porch that was about 8'x36' or about 288 square feet and a tiny cellar. Oh, yes, and for part of those years, a path to a really cold and drafty in winter outhouse. Today the house is 5,000 square feet and still due to grow a bit more.
When my parents added the largest addition, about 40 years ago, which was 36'x40' with a full basement and some attic storage space, they converted the old living room into a good-sized utility room and a mud hall. The mud hall has a closet and when we did the conversion we installed a smallish register from the furnace inside of that closet so that rain or snow wetted work clothing could dry quickly from the heated air blowing up inside of the closet. Louvered doors allowed the heated air to get out of the closet and warm the hall right at the door to the outside. It all works quite well.
Recently I came in from feeding the horses and I was pretty wet from head to toe. I hung my jacket and hat on the hooks I installed right over the floor register knowing that they would be dry in no time. I also decided to sit my waffle-stompers (lug soled work shoes) right on the register. Now the current heating system does not make the register hot so I was not concerned about the shoes over heating or burning like those of you that like to try to jump ahead of me might have thought. What did occur was that I was fairly soon informed that Diana's favorite potpourri is not Ode de Horsey-poopy... That is what was wafting rapidly out of those louvered doors. I did have a slight edge, my nose is one of a number of things that does not work as well as it used to. Don't get me wrong; Diana has no qualms about pulling on a pair of mucking boots and working in the stable or hugging a horse that decided to get some sun while laying in the muddiest part of the pasture. She just doesn't care to have that scent distributed evenly throughout the house. Lesson learned, don't sit muddy shoes on the register...
Chat later

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