DAILY FARM LIFE / home / life on thomas run

so much for boring

Just a few nights ago my husband made some remark about being bored with the winter weekends and how he was so anxious to get going with spring projects and gardening and cleaning up the yard….

So perhaps, I should blame this on him.

Saturday night, as I was finally getting my long-overdue shower–hair lathered, soapy body parts–the water pressure started to change and get lighter and lighter…

With this house's past history, I quickly got most of my hair rinsed before that trickle came to a complete stop. 

I managed to use a freezing cold glass of water to rinse off the rest of the way and called down to Dan, who was oblivious, reading in the living room, "Umm…we have no water???"

it's always something

Long story short, our well pump went out this weekend (yes I did eagerly study that diagram last night.). You know that large pipe sticking randomly out of your yard. Yup. That's where it lives. And of course, is anything ever easy? Of course not. The wrong tools. Buying the new pump only to have it be a broken pump with no continuity (a term I learned this weekend). A trip to the giant hardware store with teenage help who don't know much about our problem. A trip to the other giant hardware store where finding help is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

But, with car lights shining into the yard and a series of family members coming by to help out through the day, by 9:30 last night, almost 24 hours to the minute, the sound of running water could be heard at Thomas Run once again. 

Granted, the water has a beautiful brown tinge. And the kitchen sink is still refusing to give me any kind of water pressure, I'm still thankful that just maybe, I might be able to take a shower later this afternoon.

In the meantime, some other things I learned:

a good reminder from my children

*without water, I had to constantly remind myself that we did have electricty.

*I become obsessed with keeping the house tidy when everything else (like Mt. Dishmore) is in chaos.

*that when the lady at the hardware store UNDERcharges me by $100 I will go back with my receipt and pay up.

*that one day, I wrote this. And it's good to read it again.

*that the lights I see shining from the windows in the farmhouse next door remind me that my twenty-four hours without water pale in comparison to the dear farmer next door who has come home for his final days.

*that we're all gonna be just fine.

Just a few nights ago my husband made some remark about being bored with the winter weekends and how he was so anxious to get going with spring projects and gardening and cleaning up the yard….

So perhaps, I should blame this on him.

Saturday night, as I was finally getting my long-overdue shower–hair lathered, soapy body parts–the water pressure started to change and get lighter and lighter…

With this house's past history, I quickly got most of my hair rinsed before that trickle came to a complete stop. 

I managed to use a freezing cold glass of water to rinse off the rest of the way and called down to Dan, who was oblivious, reading in the living room, "Umm…we have no water???"

it's always something

Long story short, our well pump went out this weekend (yes I did eagerly study that diagram last night.). You know that large pipe sticking randomly out of your yard. Yup. That's where it lives. And of course, is anything ever easy? Of course not. The wrong tools. Buying the new pump only to have it be a broken pump with no continuity (a term I learned this weekend). A trip to the giant hardware store with teenage help who don't know much about our problem. A trip to the other giant hardware store where finding help is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

But, with car lights shining into the yard and a series of family members coming by to help out through the day, by 9:30 last night, almost 24 hours to the minute, the sound of running water could be heard at Thomas Run once again. 

Granted, the water has a beautiful brown tinge. And the kitchen sink is still refusing to give me any kind of water pressure, I'm still thankful that just maybe, I might be able to take a shower later this afternoon.

In the meantime, some other things I learned:

a good reminder from my children

*without water, I had to constantly remind myself that we did have electricty.

*I become obsessed with keeping the house tidy when everything else (like Mt. Dishmore) is in chaos.

*that when the lady at the hardware store UNDERcharges me by $100 I will go back with my receipt and pay up.

*that one day, I wrote this. And it's good to read it again.

*that the lights I see shining from the windows in the farmhouse next door remind me that my twenty-four hours without water pale in comparison to the dear farmer next door who has come home for his final days.

*that we're all gonna be just fine.

10 comments on “so much for boring”

  1. What a sweet post, that totally hits home with me. (We live in a 100+ year old house that seems to always have a surprise for us in one way or another. ALSO, “I become obsessed with keeping the house tidy when everything else (like Mt. Dishmore) is in chaos.” ME TOO! Why is this? It drives my family nuts. Happy that you’re all just fine. 🙂

  2. aww. sorry for your neighbor. and sorry for your troubles, but those notes of blessings are so good. i always think it’s good for our kids, when we as adults, can show them how fortunate we really are. xo

  3. I know the feeling too well. It happened when we lived on our little acre here in the desert. Our pump died, and it took quite a bit to get it fixed. Glad you are back to having water.

  4. oh, yes- the well pump… ours breaks almost once a year usually on the first weekend that we need to water the garden, when we are very dirty and desperately need a shower, and when I’ve neglected the dishes for the whole weekend opting to spend all my time outside. It’s something about our type of pump and our type of water… I’ve gotten quite used to it in the 15 years we’ve lived in this old house. In fact, we call it “little house on the prairie day” because it usually takes about 24 hours to remedy. The kids lug buckets home from the neighbors outside hose to wash dishes, we wash our feet and cool off in the creek, and grammy and pappy come to help with food to eat outside. I’ve relaxed so much about it over the years that we laugh when it happens now. My husband has become quite the pro at fixing it and knowing exactly what the problem is this time (because just when you think you know what you’re doing the universe likes to change things up on you!) Having a old time-y local plumbing shop with great prices that would rather give advice than come out and fix it helps too! It also always reminds me how lucky we are to have access to quality water (and electricity).

  5. yes. perspective. and you are wise with that perspective.

    but still, i know it’s hard to run a housefull with now water.hope it loses the brown tinge soon enough.xo.

  6. Glad to hear that you have water once again. It’s often not until something is missing, that we think about it and are most thankful for it. I know this well. Had to laugh at the Mt Dishmore remark! Very funny.

  7. I am so sorry…. we had our pump go out a few years ago. And when the well company came to replace the pump, their bit broke off, so then they brought the back hoe and tore up the back yard. Replaced everything and then the well was plugged and another expensive solution to solve that. But we didn’t have to dig a new well like several other neighbors that summer.

    It was a very expensive solution when our water was gone. We were lucky to have a neighbor who let us hook a garden hose up for a week while the repairs happened.

    I am so happy you are blessed with a handy husband and good neighbors

  8. What a beautiful post out of such chaos. I kinda wish it could happen to me so I could write something like that.

    I think it is fabulous that ya’ll fixed it yourselves…I can’t imagine getting that to work at our house. And I also think it is tres magnifique that it is (hopefully) all over.

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