My friend, Debbie at The Mountain Kitchen just wrote a great story about a water pump problem at their house. There are emotions that come with sudden water loss and she tells a mesmerizing tale. At the end her post brought back memories of an incident at our house that still makes me laugh. Country living does have its challenges.
It was a summer weekend when we lost our water. Isn’t it always? And to make things worse, our son and family (with three young grandgirls) were visiting and we couldn’t even call a plumber until Monday!
We had lived here long enough to know that several things happen when there is no water :
- There is nothing to drink.
- Cooking becomes problematical.
- Washing up from cooking becomes problematical.
- There is nothing to wash bodies with.
- Sanitation becomes problematical.
- The toilets will not flush.
There are also steps that can be taken to survive the above crisis:
- Buy bottled water.
- Bring in water from the pool to flush toilets.
- Eat out.
- Use sanitary wipes to wash bodies.
- Go to a motel.
But we were facing surviving the weekend (or longer) with a total of seven bodies in the house.
The visiting family had two choices:
- You will not hurt our feelings if you pack up and go home now, or
- You can stick it out.
Oddly enough, they decided to stick it out.
- We trucked buckets of water in from the pool for three bathrooms.
- We rented a motel room about 2 miles down the road (for showers only).
- We bought tons of bottled water.
- We bought tons of paper plates, plastic glasses, and utensils.
- Don’t ask me what we did for meals!
- And we stuck it out until Monday.
On Monday morning I drove to town to get more drinking water and Bill called our Farmer’s Co-Op for help.
And when I got home, 30 minutes later, the water was on!
“What was it?” I asked Bill.
“It was a switch,” he answered with a wry grin.
“A switch!? But we did check the breaker box!”
“Yep, it was only a switch.”
Evidently the man from our farmer’s cooperative came out right away. The first (and only) thing he did was to inspect the breaker boxes. He noticed there was another little box across the room. We forgot about that one! It was an emergency box that was installed for a new generator.
And the Co-op Man found it and flipped the switch that was plainly marked, WATER!
Such is life in the country .
Oh! Golly! I’m going to have my husband read this. We’ve lived here almost a year now and lost power only an hour one time. This magic cannot last forever, and our pump won’t go without electricity. We are considering installing a generator. We must consider your post a personal warning.
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Oh man, Dor!!! I’m so glad our problem was more of a problem than yours was. I think I may have passed out if that is all it was….lol! But you know what, think about the memories you made with your family that weekend and how you will all always say “that time we didn’t have water” to begin a story. I love it!! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
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We have had worse problems with the water pump and power outages too, but this incident was one of the funniest ones. Glad you enjoyed it Debbie. 🙂
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Power outages are a given around here Anne, and no power means no water. Having a generator definitely helps but I still fill containers and buckets for the bathrooms “just in case.”
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And this is why I love reading your stories – talk about funny! Tough going while you guys were in the middle of the mini-crisis, but “a switch!” Well now, why bother with the switch when you could have all this fun! BTW, the opening photograph is awesome Dorann!
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I don’t do well without electricity. We’ve never had a water problem but I bet it’s not good.
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LOL – oh, ouch! I can see how that story has become family legend! 😀
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Hahaha! Thanks Mary! Your observations are great about the switch crisis. 🙂
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Fir sure, doing without electricity is bad enough, but losing water in the process is a real bummer.
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‘Tis true – among others of course. 🙂
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I’ll bet that never happened again! We usually learn those lessons well, however, I managed to delete the photos on a memory card (for the second time) thinking I’d imported them. I’m glad it was a rainy weekend and I’d used my cell phone camera for most shots.
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“It was a switch” – classic! Great story and I can so relate. We had a water heater put in recently – then – a few days later the temps started to steam up so we turned the a/c back on. Nothing. Nada. Called the Heating & Cooling guy who had us check this, that and the next thing. He warned us that he has to charge the requisite $150 to visit … and it was a SWITCH — seems the plumber turned the furnace unit OFF (new furnace, and a switch we’d never seen before) … all he had to do was flip that back on, engage the thermostat and bam – sweet cool air. Felt pretty shiny in that moment. That’s what we get for trying to bring an old house up to code before we list it in the coming year … oy.
Cheers! MJ
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We have a similar story about our septic system. Living in the country we have no sewage so when we built our home an intricate septic system had to be designed, one with an alarm when things go….shall we say awry? Not long after we moved in, the alarm went off and we made a frantic call to our installer. He came out, checked it and promptly went to the breaker box in the garage & flipped a switch. Now our mantra is always ‘check the breaker box first.’ 😉
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You are right… the switch thing never happened again. But, technology tends to get in the way of progress sometimes – like deleting photos from your memory card. It’s too easy to hit the wrong buttons nowadays. 🙂
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Hahaha! You sound like Bill and me missing switches. Well, at least the problems are quick and easy solves. 🙂
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Blahahaha! Another story of a switch solution! Seems we are not the only ones Cindy and well, it teaches us to always “check the breaker box first.”
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Oh dear 🙂
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Oh, no! To think you went through all that inconvenience all because of a switch! Oh, well, it makes for an interesting story – and blog post!
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Funny how simple that was. Worth the story. I have one I should write about, and maybe I will. It takes place at a cottage on a lake with over 20 people–kids and adults, septic back up. One toilet for that many would have been problematic enough, but with no toilet, much worse. And it was blazing hot!
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Yes, please write your story of the lake and the 20 people and the back up…. 🙂
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It funny how these thing often turn out to have a simple solution. 🌿 That was quite a time you had with any water though 😊
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Ah, there’s nothing better than a story with a happy ending.
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