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Absolutely gorgeous morning, and then…

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I will give folks credit. I made the first phone call at 7:31am and by 8:50 a fellow had already come out, hooked up hoses, had taken meter readings, and left. He’ll be back. No idea what happened. There’s no break in the line that he’s aware of. Someone else on the road called so it’s not just us.

There are many many advantages to the Country Mouse lifestyle. Broken water lines and muddy tap water are not among them.

As I write, three hoses are bleeding off muddy water onto low lying areas of the “yard.” Any inside spigot that has enough pressure to stream is. None in the apartment do. Have I mentioned that the official name of the apartment is The Greenhouse Apartment on High Water Hill? That’s why there’s no pressure. The city will pay for all of this water.

Meanwhile, life goes on this gorgeous morn. There are plenty of gallons of bottled water in the Tornado Room. There are 250 gallons in the rain barrel– that’s like literally a ton of water. I once calculated how many flushes we could get out of a ton of water. (This is not it but there’s a picture of a melon growing under the rain barrel.) And! I have two quarts of water in the fridge just waiting to be fizzled by the SodaStream. Most importantly, though, we score an A+++ in the How Many Ways Do You Have to Boil Water class offered by The Department of Redundancy Department. Both Mr. Big Food and I are Full Professors, don’t ya know.

3 Responses

  1. I’m surprised you’re on city water…I’d expect you to have your own well.
    Is there some reason that you don’t? I know you didn’t build, but bought the place so you may not be aware of whys and wherefores, but I’m curious. Of course, if you had a well, and then had some of the monstrous weather conditions you occasionally have, you might have a problem with water supply due to power outage…but…I am curious as to the thoughts that go into making the water supply decision.

    1. I do not know why we have city water. In fact, if you have a dormant or dry well, the county will take it out for you for free.

      Here is my suspicion and I could be way off. I’m not exactly sure when it was, but sometime in the pretty recent (for people our age) past there was one final push to get everyone out in the boonies on electricity! And I wonder if getting folks on city water sort of went along with that– especially since all utilities are regulated by the same state agency. ??

      We probably do have a well somewhere but I have no idea where it would be. We have a septic system and I do know where that and the lines for it are.

  2. Even if you had a well, you’d have to have a storage tank for the water, i think. I don’t think the water ever goes directly from the well to the house, but I could be wrong. When I was in high school, my best friend was a country girl. Her neighbor’s husband died, and the first thing his wife did after he was buried was to put running water into the house. I don’t remember the source of the water, but I’d bet it was city/county of some source. They hadn’t had water in the house up to that point. None. Zip. Nada. Unless it was carried in. There was a well outside the back door, with a pump…you know, the kind that you push the handle up and down and after about the 3rd or 4th push, water pours out. That kind. I couldn’t blame the wife…I’m so grateful for the many benefits we have living when we do.
    In fact, the first house we rented after we got married was in a small town in Maryland. New house, no well. Outhouse only when we moved in. They were in the process of putting the well in…it was right outside the bedroom window – probably not more than about 20 feet from the house – and I was able to watch as they put it in. It was really interesting. They had large concrete rings – probably 6 feet in diameter…or maybe even 8 feet. They’d dig down – using shovels – and when they got down about 2-3 feet, they dropped the first concrete ring down into the dug out area. The rings were approximately 3 ft deep. They’d then get down into the center part and dig more, and specifically below the edges of the rings. As they dug, the concrete rings would sink, and as the top of the ring reached the level of the ground above, they’d put another ring down on top of the previous ring. And the guys would keep digging. We were close to the ground water – it was probably located about 20 miles west of the Chesapeake Bay – so they only had to go down about 20 or 30 feet before they hit water and the job was done. Come to think of it, I don’t remember how they topped it off – I’m sure it wasn’t left open – but the important thing was…we had _running water_!! In the house!!

    You know…I don’t remember how we dealt with bath and kitchen water problems…just the outhouse! Husband probably took care of his needs on post…but dishes??? I just don’t remember.

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