Living In The Country

Had a small problem last night and it made me think about some things.

At around 5 PM yesterday the power went off. Not unusual it happens every where. So did not think a whole lot about it since shortly after it happened heard sirens going off. Thought that might of been a car wreck and they took out a power pole. We needed to run to town but when we stepped out the door surprise all the neighbors had power!

Great, grabbed a flashlight went to the breaker box main breaker is tripped, tried to reset it but no go! Broken. Well luckily the hardware store was still open so got a new breaker and fixed it.

Ok that was no big thing but it brought to mind one thing that happened when we lived 20 out of town. It was Christmas eve and we had finished opening gifts and doing the normal Christmas cheer and things had wound down and we were all heading to bed. I went to get a drink of water and when I turned it on..nothing.

Ok something must be wrong with the pump so I grabbed a flashlight and went to investigate. Did not have to go far to see we had a problem there was water gushing out of the ground. Great. Ran to the pump house and turned off the pump and then ran to my parents house and told my dad of the problem and went back to survey the situation.

Seems that a shut off valve that went to a sprinkler spigot had decided that it did not want to be in one piece any more, and had broke. It was cold but not that bad ,and we had it well insulated but it was old. Well no other choice but to dive in and fix it. Cold or not, need to have water.

Took off my coat had a little pep talk with myself and got on my hands and knees and put my arm in the hole. To my surprise the water was warm....Oh great the hot water heaters are draining. My dad was headed down by that time, so I yelled at him to shut off the hot water heaters so the elements would not burn out. After he got that done is was just a matter of getting the right tools and parts to fix, the whole time laying in 2 inches of rapidly cooling water.

Don't know who had it worse, me or my dad, who probably put in 3 miles that night running for parts. So after we got it fixed and the pump running again my cousin who was probably around 15 at the time helped..ok he held the flashlight..he is a city boy born and raised.

Well I had stood up soaking wet no hot water for a shower, cold, need I say more? But he pipes up with I'm never going to live in the country...Why I asked thru chattering teeth...His comment was something along the line of that he would not do anything like that you pay people to do that stuff.

City boy he did not understand we did it because..

It is what it is

And who is going to get a plumber at that time anyway?

Rod