We live in Tennessee and for over seven days (I’ve lost count on exactly how many) we have been below freezing in temperatures. Not so bad when you do not have water pipes that freeze. But…we live 500 feet down in a holler and at two points our pipes are exposed. One area is where there is a rock bluff that we need to be creative and cover by other means than digging in and the other is at our road where the pipes are exposed where some bulldozing work was done. Over the summer we buried the rest of the exposing pipes leaving us with these two areas left.
Most nights when our pipes freeze, it is really no big deal because usually by noon our pipes unfreeze and the water flows again. In these cases, I have a small window of opportunity to be creative and get things washed, coffee made, tea made and my shower before we lose water. I also fill up water pitchers for the morning use. Usually me and DJ are the only ones affected as we are the only ones that are up and getting ready for school and work. The others 2 kids are schooled at home and Jeremy does not have to be at work until 3pm so their schedules offers them the luxury of water.
Here’s the tough part…Thursday was our last evening of water. I did my usual getting ready for no water routine for Friday morning and off to work I went. The the snow started and when I got home, unprepared for no water, there was no water. We did have three gallons of water thanks to my husband that picked them up from the store, but that was it. No big deal, I said, we’ll get it back on Saturday. Big deal, we did not get it back yesterday.
Here is where it gets bad. Did I mention that are 500 feet down? A steep 500 feet down that does not allow us access to the world because we can’t get in or out. Well, we can but we slip and slide and I scream and cry and usually it is not worth it and we don’t take the risk unless it is an emergency.
So what do we do with no way out and no water? We get grumpy. To top it off the goats water is and has been frozen solid and they were thirsty and we have no mean of getting them any. We are really trying to get creative to get water to flush our toilets and water for the animals. So we send Joey out with a bucket to do this….
He kept getting us buckets of snow off the trampoline and I started boiling it on the stove…
Hmm, the things we must do to flush out toilets and water our animals. So here it is now Sunday, the sun is shining and we are sitting here praying for the sun to hit the pipes just right so they will unfreeze and we can have water again. As I sit here and type this, our water just broke through!!!
WOO TO THE HOO!! Okay, don’t mean to cut this short, but I am off to take a shower!!!!
5 Comments:
We continue to be in a deep freeze too! It was 9 below this morning actualy temp not including wind chill. Thankfully we don't have problems with freezing pipes but it is possible to lose power with the temps so cold.
Hope you had a GREAT shower :}
I'm so sorry you went so long without water. I also did not relize that you were not able to get out and here I invited you over for a shower...so sorry. I will know now to get you water for Christmas next year. :)
Oh My STARS!!!!! You are a better woman than me! I'd have soooo been off to the Ramada Inn.
Glad your water is back on. We so take our modern conveniences for granted don't we.
Happy showering! It's nice to be clean!
Robin
Wow, ya'll were really roughing it. Poor Joey, he looks mighty cold.
so glad your water is back!!!
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