Winter Saga-2011 (Long post-for posterity)

It has been something of a long winter.

Not necessarily as cold as we usually have.

But lots and lots of snow.

We've even had some warm-ish spots

when the temperature was in the 20's.

Man, it felt like a heat wave.

But then real winter life came back:

(That says the current temperature is -8º)

(I love weather.com)

So through all of this cold and snow I've been a maniac

about keeping water running from a faucet

day and night.In 2007 the city water to our house froze

on January 17 and didn't thaw until the middle of April,

right before we left for Hawaii.

Well, in this kind of weather it doesn't take long

for the water to freeze if it is standing still.

Even in the day.

And on Saturday, February 5, it did.

Even though we were using our water

the stream wasn't strong enough to make up for how cold it was.

And that stream of water got slower and thinner and finally

stopped.

You could hear my wails of anguish.

I won't go into all the details but they involved

the city coming and trying to thaw the meter

and friends and neighbors setting up a heat tent

and trying to heat up the ground and the meter and pipe.

But it was just too cold.

And we were just out of luck.

And water.

So Doug bought some new, clean hoses and we

hooked up with our neighbor's outside spigot to ours

and that brought water into our house.

At least we could shower and flush and wash dishes and clothes.

But now we have to be EVER vigilant because

the hose runs outside and can freeze even faster if we aren't careful.

So then Doug and I took a trip to San Francisco

(he for a dental class, me for the fun)

and we had a GREAT time.

We left early Thursday and got home late Sunday.

And on Monday it was Valentine's Day

and Doug brought me my 27th bouquet of daisies.

Life was good.

We didn't have a strong water pressure, but we had water.

I had been to the sand and the sea and was feeling centered.

I had another beautiful bouquet of daisies.

So on Tuesday I decided to walk outside because the sun was shining

and the sky was blue and the temperature was in the 20's again.

And on my way out I noticed some frozen water coming from under the garage door

and wondered what that was about?

It wasn't warm enough for water to be melting and running.

Upon closer investigation and inspection I discovered

a really horrifying thing:

Water from the spigot had been leaking into the crawl space under our house

and had filled it up and was running out

down the side of the garage and down the driveway.

Only it was so cold it was freezing by the time it got to the garage door.

Can we just pause here so that you can grasp what this means?

The crawl space is the length and breadth of our house

and about 3 feet high.

Fortunately, the entrance to the crawl space is at about 2 feet

so at that point the water was running out.

Long story short:

We had to shut the water from the hoses off.

(No water coming into the house now.)

We had to borrow a pump and start pumping the water out of the crawl space.

(In the above picture you can see where floor to the garage is,

up where the top cord is going. That is how high the water was)

After 24 hours, it wasn't enough.

I went a bought a pump so two could be working at a time.

I held my camera down and snapped some pictures just to see

what was going on down there

and saw the water line on the heat ducts under the house

(that's another story).

So while the pumps were draining under the house

so that the plumber could go down there and fix things

we lived on bottled water and paper goods

and used our 7 gallon water containers for flushing.

And gracious neighbors offered bathrooms for showers

(THANK YOU).

On Friday Randy, the plumber, came

and crawled under the house and repaired the leaking spigot

and got us back to our new normal

and I've never been so grateful for hose water before!

(Anybody know of any dental practices for sale NOT AROUND HERE?)