Water woes

Saturday, after bus calling, I went to a coworker’s house to look at a tractor he had in a barn on his property. Actually, the property of his father-in-law. I had no idea what to expect, but when I saw the remains of the tractor – most of its engine parts missing – I knew it was not a project I wanted to take on. You never know, so it was worth the time to make the visit. He took the time to drive me around the property. It is a larger tract of land with a lot of nice features, bisected by a creek that runs through a deep gully. One day it will all be covered with houses. That is the way in this area, but it was nice to see it open and uncluttered. It was not a hurried visit, but I did not stay long. It was on the way home from that visit that my weekend got interesting.

Mama called as I was heading home from that visit to let me know that we had no water at the house. Oh, fun. I told her I would get on that as soon as I got home. With a well, it can only be one of two things; the power or the pump. Many times, if not most, it is a power issue. That was where I started. The pressure switch was operating fine. It was clean. It was trying to tell the well to kick on. The control box was another issue. It was very rusted. Corroded to the point that I was sure we had found the issue. Mama and I went to Lowe’s to get a replacement box and when we got home, I installed it on the well. Nothing. That was disappointing. I double checked my connections. Got it to try to make the pump operate. Nothing. That was that. The pump was not working. That is a much bigger issue.

Mama made a few phone calls and we talked to the man that had drilled our well in Bowie when we first started to set up the farm. He agreed with me that the issue was more that likely the pump. He was not available to pull the pump today until perhaps late in the day, so that may not happen until tomorrow. The cost - about $1500. Ouch! We’ll squeeze that money from somewhere. So, to get us by for the weekend, I ran hoses from a hydrant at the chicken coop that runs off the well in the barn lot. From there I connected hoses to reach the boy goats and a hose to fill buckets to be used for flushing the toilets. If the well is not back in service today, I will connect the house to the barn lot well temporarily so we can live a more-or-less normal life until the repair is made. A couple years ago, Mama wondered at the time, effort and money being spent to get the barn lot well operational. Not that she was opposed to the idea. But we were getting by on the one well and lots of hoses. Now, both of us are very glad we have access to water we can use in this type of emergency.

In order to get ready for Sunday, we took showers at Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Bowie. Grandma was so excited to have us there that she talked non-stop. Repeating stories we had heard multiple times. Playing songs we had also heard multiple times. Showing pictures on her phone that we had seen multiple times. Grandpa tried a couple times to shut her down. To slow her down. Invariably, Mama would start a conversation with Grandpa and Grandma would try to start up a competing conversation with me while is was trying to participate in the discussion with Grandpa and Mama. We were there about an hour and a half getting showers, visiting and finally saying our long goodbyes. All of us tried not to get too sweaty during the rest of the evening and the following morning; the animals still had to be tended to as normal. Tonight, we may have to repeat that process.

In the meantime, we are using bottled water for everything except flushing the toilets. It is inconvenient, but it could definitely be worse.