Snow

12/5/11 Monday
It’s a rare thing out here. I’m talking about snow, or any kind of moisture for that matter. We had rain two days ago and over three inches of snow last night. We went to the widow’s house yesterday afternoon, where I did a variety of chores and installed the insulating cups we bought for her outside water faucets. But mostly Geneva craved the company, someone to talk with and share the things going on in her life. It was good for Cherie too as she had someone to share with other than me. We all sat together after I got done with the various chores and talked about God and spiritual things. But knowing it would freeze last night I called it an evening and said we had to go. So we prayed together, as we always do when we visit, and I hurried home.

The urgency was because I knew I needed to insure the work I had done with the booster pump was protected from freezing. One good freeze and all that work would be erased with broken plastic pipes spewing water all over the place. We found an old electric space heater that I put in the pit we dug, then I covered it over with old pieces of plywood and a tarp. Held the tarp down with a bunch of cinder blocks to insure it didn’t go anywhere.

That evidently worked because we had running water this morning. I went out to take pictures and also to see if the old rotted pieces of plywood held up to the weight of the snow. It all seems to still be in place. Today I will focus more time on fixing that up. Eventually I plan on building a cinderblock building to cover and protect all of that but for now I must devise a better temporary solution. There are some serious cold days coming, like tomorrow, when it gets down to 20 degrees or so. That little space heater will send our electric bill up there and things are tight as it is.

I hope to find some work driving a truck. Am studying for the written part of the CDL exam but I need to find a semi to use for the driving part of the test. Meantime there is plenty to do here. I have windows to calk now that I found two new tubes of caulk I’d forgotten I had purchased. And I still need to tile the bathroom but that is a major project that will require the removal of the toilet while I tile that area, along with the bathroom sink.

I must go brush off and warm up Cherie’s truck so will be back.

That took a while. Brought back memories of living in Michigan and Ohio. I like the snow, but I don’t. It’s beautiful and not convenient at all. There were some 4000 reports of power outages in the area, mostly caused by the weight of snow breaking branches of trees that fell on power lines. Plus there are reports of car wrecks this morning. Most of the schools are closed today as this area is not equipped for snow. The weather report says that the snow will turn to rain later in the day. That will be a mess. I sure wish I had a way to collect all this moisture for the dry times to come.