About Yesterday…

Yesterday morning I looked at what I faced for the day and blanched. It didn’t look good.

I thought I had two chapters to edit, I had to go and get food for the menagerie ( an hour trip, there and back), and I should crawl under the house with a heat gun (since the water wasn’t running yet).

It was hard to set priorities. I really wanted water but I couldn’t afford to fall behind on the edits.

I brought my wife to my in-laws and from there headed towards the feed store. As I drove, I decided that, when I got home, I’d crawl under the house and spend the afternoon trying to get the water lines thawed then do the edits in the evening/night.

So once home I freed up extension cords, taped the connections so I didn’t have to worry about accidentally electrocuting myself, and crawled into the space under the house. I went deep under, to where the start of the PEX line started. I had thawed the iron pipe coming out of the ground the day before and was delighted to see the standing water around it remained unfrozen.

I peeled back the insulation on the PEX and started heating t with the heat gun … which is when I found out my heat gun is dying. It would run for a bit, then cut out and after playing with i, it would come back to life- but only for a short bit before cutting out again.

I decided to do what I could. I worked down the line, heating the parts where I could pee away some insulation, for as long as the heat gun worked. When it cut out, I’d re-wrap the insulation around the pipes and move down the line.

I had to skip one section because there was a puddle under it, I didn’t like leaving that much unheated but without the option of a hot bath to get into I wasn’t going to soak myself in nearly frozen water.

On and on, bit-by-bit, I went down the line. I finally reached a place that was more water. I could go no further. I had heated about fifty percent of one half of the line. It wouldn’t be enough I knew and crawled back out disgusted with this winters.

I went back inside and started on the edits. They went fairly well and I discovered that Chapter three wasn’t ready for me yet. Less edits than I expected. I had just finished with chapter two when my wife texted me to come get her.

I picked up her and our St. Bernard and headed home but first we had to go to town to buy some cat food. There is a T-intersection on the way to our house from town that is often quite treacherous and slippery in winter. I hit it too hard and we sailed across the street and ending in the ditch.

For ten years out here, I have never had a problem (nor the decades living in the city). This however made the second time I was in (or damn near to) a ditch and had to get pulled out.

Finally got out, (with the aid of a back hoe!) and headed home. I feed and locked up the animals for the night before going in. When I did make it inside my wife was sitting on the couch with an inscrutable look on her face.

“good news is we have water running to all taps” She said, “bad news–why is the bathroom flooded”

I went to investigate and saw no current flooding and no explanation… until I realized the shower stall also had water in it. The drain line had been blocked and the water (when it suddenly started running out of three separate taps) flooded the system, gurgling out the shower drain and flooded the bathroom.

So finally last night at 7pm (and with great trepidation) I took a bath. The water is still running this morning, and although I now believe that that issue will plague us no more this year – that water will no longer be a whispered, forbidden word – I have to admit… even after the truck in the ditch and the flooded bathroom – I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I hope I am wrong. I hope 6 weeks without water is the price we paid to have it now.