Who needs water anyway?

Ever had that sinking feeling in your gut when you just know something bad is going to happen, or has just happened?  Yeah, me too.  When my husband told me that he wanted to volunteer with a group of missionaries going to Rwanda for two weeks, that funny feeling in my gut appeared.  Not particularly because I didn’t agree with the need for it.  After all, if you’ve got something great to share, you’ll share it with whomever will listen.  No, it was because Rwanda is very far from here, and he told me he would be gone for two weeks.  Well, it turned out to actually be three weeks total. 

Three weeks here on the homestead by myself is a very long time.  So many chores, duties, animals, garden crops, having to fill up my own car with gas (yes, that’s one of the things my husband takes care of for me), supply trips to town, and what in the world was I going to eat that whole time??   Back then, my idea of a meal that I had to cook for myself was opening a jar of olives (no exaggeration).  I was not thrilled with the thought of all that solo work.  But then, all that work would help to keep my mind off worrying about whether my husband was getting bitten by mosquitos and contracting malaria. 

After making all the necessary preparations, and dropping my beloved off at the international airport, I found myself back home to begin the three weeks of flying solo.  All was well for the first day.  Phew! only 20 more days to go.  Day number two, I noticed something was wrong with the pressure in the water faucet.  Yes, something was definitely wrong with the water.  I did a quick check online to see if there had been some kind of water main break somewhere near our house.  Nope, nothing online about that.  Called my neighbors to see if they had any problems.  Again no.  Oh, so it was just me? 

Well, I should tell you that about a year prior, we had gotten a call from the city asking if we were filling up a swimming pool.  “No,” I said.  “Why do you ask?”  They told me that my water meter was spinning like a top and if I weren’t filling up a swimming pool, then there had to be a break somewhere in our water line.  Indeed, there had been a break in our water line, and we didn’t notice it because the break was along our driveway near our pond.  And the water had just been leaking into the pond itself.  So we never noticed the hundreds of gallons of water that were leaking out.

My Spidey-sense told me today’s problem just might be another water line break.  But where exactly?  I searched all along the quarter-acre pond bank near the road.  Of course I started looking near where the last break had been. Finally, I found a trickle of water coming out from the rocks near the bank of the pond, rippling the surface of the water as gallons upon gallons of water that were supposed to be filling up my toilet tanks and shower heads, were again disappearing into my pond.  What were the odds?!?

And of course, this happened on day number two of my husband being thousands of miles away and not even easily reached by phone so that I could ask him what in the world to do to fix it.  I called my friend who has a mini-excavator.  This friend had done some concrete work on our homestead in previous years.  And he lives within a couple miles.  I’m sure he heard the stressed-out sound in my voice on the phone and felt sympathy.  Because he promised to have one of his workers come the next day to try and dig up the pipe to patch it.

Now when I made the call for the leak in the pipe to be fixed, I thought to myself, “what am I going to do for water in the meantime?”  About a year prior, we had gone through the extensive effort to have a water well dug.  And although we did hit water, it was not a gusher.   Meaning we didn’t hit a water vein that would supply enough water for us to use continuously on demand.  No, it was more of a slow refill.  The well shaft was 150 feet deep.  Conceptually then, as the water was pumped from the well shaft and into our house, we would have 150 feet of pipe full of water that would slowly refill as it was being used.   Not too bad, not really great either.  But a start.  I remembered where my husband had pointed to in the crawlspace under our house, where the plumber had installed a lever that could be switched from “city water” to “well water.”  I had flipped that lever to the well water source when the leak was detected the afternoon before, thinking that I was so grateful for being so well prepared.  Such a great prepper!

I knew that I needed to be conscious of how much water I would use until the repair was completed.  But I brushed my teeth, flushed my toilet and washed my hands with confidence.  About mid-afternoon though, I needed to take a shower.  Well, I took half a shower, because midway through the shower the water started to trickle.  “What!” I thought.  “But I’m on my safety water, the water that will be there when I need it!”  The well was already empty.

In a panic I thought of all those gallons of water that had leaked into our pond, wishing some of those gallons were accessible to me now.  But then it hit me…those gallons were still accessible to me.  They were right there in the pond.  And when push comes to shove, a good homesteader takes lemons and makes lemonade.  I’m not too proud to take a bucket out to the pond to fill up my toilet tanks.  And so that’s what I did until the repairmen came out later that day.

At that time, I worked remotely at home.  So I was used to juggling work spreadsheets, conference calls, and the occasional yelp of an animal in perceived distress right outside my office window.  But that regular juggling, topped now with managing a mini-excavator, and moving the azalea bushes dangerously near the now gaping holes being dug to fix the leak, left me in a pant to keep up with the work load.  And of course the extra work of running out to the pond each time I needed to flush the toilet. When it rains it pours.  But I’m a woman, and multi-tasking is one of my God-given talents.

When I think about all the many steps involved in any problem-solving exercise, it is exhausting.  When you’re in that pinch, right in the thick of it, you just move from the thing right in front of you that needs to be done, to the next necessary thing, and so on.  You get through it one step at a time.  And before you know it, you’re already halfway through that hard spot.  And then you’re on the other side of it and the work is done.  The lessons are learned.  Experience gained.  What to do, what not to do.  Better prepared for the next challenge.  And trust me, there will be a next challenge.  Ready, set, go!