The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man (or How I Glued All My Fingers Together)

You know that scene from Ghost Busters when the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man attacks the city? Well, he - on a much smaller scale - has attacked The Jungle House.

He has squeezed through every crevice of our fireplace.

What? Why?

It was a perfectly nice fireplace.

OK, that last photo was a "before" image. It wasn't so perfectly nice then.

So why would The Farmer seem to have so much fun with the Stay-Puft can?

 Well, the fireplace was a little drafty. 

OK, a lot drafty.

We knew it needed to be fixed, but we just hadn't gotten around to it yet. As in we'd never opened the fireplace front door until yesterday. We didn't want to know what we'd find.

Ignorance is bliss.

But yesterday The Farmer sat in the chair directly in front of the fireplace for the first time. And it was 37 degrees out. He froze all through lunch with my aunt and uncle. And after they left he was determined to fix the fireplace.

He was very thorough.

As luck would have it we only found a plastic cup, a cardboard box, a few leaves, the handle for the fireplace(!), and a lot of soot inside. 

Thank goodness The Farmer had his Shop-Vac. It's getting a lot of use these days.

So we now have six feet of insulation up the chimney flue, insulation in the stove, and an entire can of Stay-Puft (I'm sure there is an official name for this stuff, but Stay Puft seems appropriate and descriptive) squeezed into the crevices. 

The stuff expands and hardens before your eyes!

Oh, and notice all the pretty marbles embedded into the hearth. Yeah...we discovered them after about two months in the house. 

The Farmer assures me the Stay-Puft can be cut and shaped with a knife and then painted to look like mortar. 

I hope this is true.

And despite a lack of photos, the other excitement around the Stay-Puft is that it is very very very very very very very sticky. Is that enough stickies?

I know this because, well, I had to take off my glove at one point and I forgot to put it back on. I then accidentally touched the Stay-Puft and realized how sticky it was. I then couldn't put my glove back on as I had all this stickiness on my hand. So I kept helping The Farmer.

And by the end I had essentially glued all my fingers together.

The Farmer thought this was quite funny.

Four industrial-strength disenfectant wipes, Borax, nail polish remover and over an hour later, I had fingers that looked like I had dipped them in sap. But they weren't sticky any longer.

Just tacky.

And 24 hours later I still have glue residue on my fingers and nails.

Lovely.

But the fireplace is draft-free!