01/11/07
It was Thursday and I was home with Amelia. Chris was already off to work and for the first time in a long time it was snowing outside. Everything was covered in two inches of the fluffy white stuff and the outside cats were all busy testing to see if they could walk on it but mostly finding long and involved paths around it. Baby black kitty was the most adventurous, picking her way very carefully into the sea of white that was our backyard before getting spooked once she’d hit the middle, she then gave up all pretense of worrying what she was stepping on and ran the rest of the way to the porch where I was setting out food.

Once Amelia was down for her nap I threw my work-jeans on over my pajama’s and headed outside to play. On the front porch I was met by our two resident grouchy cats, Mr. Peepers and Alfred, the odd couple of feline-hood. I made a few test snowballs and quickly discovered that the snow picked up the dirt and pine needles hidden beneath, resulting in an unpleasant dirty lump of a snowball. I experimented with ways to get just the top of the snow and managed to make seven tiny snowmen in more or less of a line in the front driveway. Alfred didn’t understand what I was doing and kept trying to follow me around but since he didn’t want to walk in the snow he was trying to navigate through my footprints, complaining the whole time. After a short time I picked him up, gave his some love and set back on the porch where he and Mr. Peepers promptly got into a spat. Usually this would result in one of them lumbering away but the snow didn’t give them much room, so they both took up sulking positions on either side of the door. Giving the little snow people eyes and noses turned out to be unrealistic; they were too tiny to adopt features to. They were small and depressingly uninteresting. So I grabbed a dustpan and an empty litter box that I usually used for gardening and went to the backyard. Here the snow looked like a field, unbroken by bushes it was a nice white expanse that extended over the back patio and lawn. The cats gave me baleful looks when I surprised them by going outside and not giving them more food. They fled into the snow and then, irritated that I wasn’t going away, slowly crept back to the back porch. Using the park bench in the back I started stacking litter boxes full of snow. I scooped up whatever was nearest and worked my way out to the middle of the patio. It seemed like an excellent idea at the time, but when I was finished the wet ground had solidified into a solid sheet of ice that made walking on it an act of levitation. I mounded up two piles of snow and formed them into snow people, more or less. Hats and scarves made a vast improvement on my lack of sculpting. By this time Amelia was awake and ready for anything other than lying in her bassinet. I dressed her in the warmest clothing I could find for her, which entailed an outfit and coat too big for her though the hat that Chris’ boss’ wife had made her fit perfectly however. We headed outside and she immediately went quiet, though probably more from the cold than the awe of snow. I plunked her into her babe pod between the snow people and took some pictures. She was so adorable! After fifteen minutes she decided she’d had enough and we went back inside. Adventure over… almost.

The following Saturday night Amelia was tucked in and sleeping and Chris and I managed to stay up until 3am watching TV. Heading to bed we noticed the oddest thing, the water to the house had stopped working. Possibly the pipes were frozen. Chris headed out to the pump house and tried to get the generator to the water storage going again, it would work for a minute at best and then quit. We went to bed and figured we’d deal with it in the morning. The next afternoon Chris tried again, same deal. We contemplated our options, we could stick it out, we could go to Rose’s for who knows how long or we could go to a hotel. None of the options would fix the problem. Chris went back out and did some research and came to the conclusion that water storage drum was practically empty and not refilling from the well. Perhaps the water level gizmo was broken. He called my dad who gave him the name of the place who could send a repairman. Calling for the repairman we were told that it could be a few days for him to get out to see us. Great.

We all took a nap and when I woke up I went outside and dismantled the snow people on the bench, carted the snow into the house and dumped it into the bathtub. My reasoning was that this way we could at least have water for the toilets. Chris woke up just as I was hacking at the remains on the bench. I explained my brilliant plan and he shook his head and went back to playing with the generator. I was full of self-importance and pride as I lugged my snow into the house, I was going to save my family… well, save them from having to go wee outside anyway. The snow sat in the bathtub and refused to melt. I checked the stopper to make sure it was secure, and then I pulled some snow out and set it to melt on the stove in a big pot. Chris looked at me like I was crazy and went outside to check on the water drum. The snow in the pot melted into approximately three cups worth of water and pine needles. This was going to take a lot more snow than I had thought it was. I dumped in more snow from the bathtub and watched it melt. By this time it was late evening, nothing had been solved and we had to work the next day. The water drum would start to fill and then quickly empty again without water making it to the house, Chris surmised that there had to be leak somewhere and narrowed it down to the rotting side of the pump house that had an outside faucet. Trekking out there with Chris he turned the generator on again while I watched the area flood with water. The elbow joint of the PVC pipe leading to the faucet had a big hole in the underside of the joint. Problem discovered! Now what. Calling my dad again he said he had the stuff to fix it and he’d come out. Amelia and I kept the TV company while Chris and my dad went out to fix it; they soon found a cut-off knob to the faucet and used that instead. The water drum slowly started to fill with water and this time when the generator was turned on water made its way to the house instead of to the bushes next to the pump house. Hurrah! My dad came back through the kitchen and saw the pot of pine needles simmering, but didn’t comment. After several hours we had water again as usual, and a bathtub full of snow and pine needles which wasn’t usual. The chill from the snow seeped through the metal tub and into the floor, making it rather uncomfortable to use the bathroom. I meant to clean it out right away, but that would mean using hot water to melt the snow and with the recent water crises I figured I should wait. A few days later (I guess waiting took longer than I had planned) the snow had all melted, but gone down the drain as the tub stopper wasn’t as secure as I thought it was. What was left in the tub was the muck and pine needles that were hidden in the snow. I figured I’d clean it out… in a few days. Several days later I was home and puttering in the kitchen when Chris came in and asked if I’d seen his surprise. Surprise?! Delighted at what I thought was an impending candy bar I was confused when he directed me to the bathroom. He’d cleaned out the bathtub! It was sparkling clean! He was even nice enough not to saying something to the effect of ‘another one of your harebrained schemes down the drain, heh heh.’ I have a wonderful husband. Next time I really will save the family.

Posted by Emilie in Family