Pioneer Spirit

When I named my blog "Little Librarian on the Prairie," little did I know that I was going to be experiencing a bit of the pioneer life myself.  Thursday morning, I turned on the shower, and stuck my head in it long enough to get my hair wet before the water stopped. Nothing. Nada. Upstairs, downstairs, bathroom, kitchen, all dry as a bone.

My initial thought was, "Oh crap. Did I somehow space it and forget to pay the utility bill?" But I was fairly certain I had, so I called the utility company to double check. I had actually paid the bill early, so that wasn't the problem. And that's when my stomach dropped out on me. I knew what the problem was. Our pipes were frozen.  But the problem is that there was no sign of freezing in the house.  Turns out, our main access line to the house is frozen.

The normal fix for this situation is actually quite ingenious.  There's a welding company about 45 minutes away that comes out and attaches an electrode to the line and heats up the entire pipe, thus melting the ice.  Easy peasy (but kind of expensive) fix.  So they get here and dig up our yard. And discover that when the city ran a new main down our street a couple years ago, they replaced our metal access pipe with - PVC. Which not only is not conductive, but will also melt with any kind of intense heat applied to the plastic.

So what is the solution when you have plastic pipes?  Apparently, the only solution is...spring. Yep. The welding company, the utility company, and the city are all telling us that the only thing we can do is wait for spring.  Ooooookay.

So, there's only one thing for it. We have to kind of live like pioneers. I went to Menard's and got a big 5 gallon water cooler and another 5 gallon food safe bucket.  It cost us about $30, and that's because I splurged and got a special lid for the bucket that was $7.  It has a seal so air can't get in.  I figured I'd get that lid, so when we have water I can buy flour in bulk and keep it in the bucket.  I use a lot of flour, particularly since I've started baking my own bread fairly regularly (I'll post that recipe soon hopefully).  So, make that little guy multi-purpose.

We filled up the buckets, and I borrowed a sink and did some dishes, so we've got clean pots and pans.  I bought plastic silverware and paper plates, even though I really hate to use them. I called the local YMCA, and they are being gracious enough to let us use their showers while ours is out of order.  We filled up tubs with snow and are using that for gray water stuff (mostly flushing the toliet).  Let me tell you though, a foot of snow is the equivalent of about an inch of water.  A tub full to the top with snow will melt to enough water to flush our toilet once.

But, we're trying to make the best of it, and part of making the best of it, I think, is writing about the experience. I've already learned a lot, and it's not even the end of the weekend yet.  We'll see if I can make this a positive thing.  More tomorrow!