Cause and Effect

It has been a pretty eventful time here on the farm lately. It's amazing how little things can create really large problems. Our little farm cottage is estimated to be between 75 and 100 years old. Apparently, back in the old days, when the water table is super high people didn't dig basements. As such, we have a crazy small crawl space under our house complete with dirt floor and crumbly foundation. This crawlspace has been the bane of my existence for many reasons, most of which include snakes living under my little house and now frozen pipes. Late Saturday night I woke up to a very still silence. No fan running for white noise, no heaters running, and no lights. I went out into the living room to check things out but there were no blown fuses so we assumed it was a power outage and went back to bed. That apparently was our first mistake.

Sunday morning we woke up and we no longer had water to any of our sinks or our toilet. We figured that since the pipes were already frozen we could wait to thaw them out until after church. So we made our cups of coffee and headed out.

Let me pause this little tirade to say that this is not the first time the pipes have frozen. In fact, this is the third time I have had to thaw out the pipes this winter. First, our heat tape wasn't plugged in so we had nothing to combat the low temps. Second, we had a massive snow storm that blew snow into the crawlspace and wrapped around our pipes freezing them solid. And now, Cause: the power went out, turning off the heat tape. Effect: leaving us in the middle of this mess!

When we did get back home I took out the trusty "thaw out the pipes" space heater and hooked it up under the house. 30 minutes later the water was running again, in fact it was gushing out underneath the house like Niagara Falls! This time we were not as lucky as the last few and one of the pipes burst from freezing. We realize we needed to turn the water off ASAP and ran to the door to the mechanical shed. Here is our cause and effect number 2, Cause: No gutters installed on the back of the house. Effect: Ice buildup in front of the door prevents the door from being open.

Hubs realizes that we need to melt that ice pronto and I ran for the flame weeder. After a few passes with the flame weeder we were back in business and proceeded to turn off the water supply. Only after we had all the water turned off did we discover our next problem. Cause: Using a flame weeder on a partially rotted door, and then turning all the water off. Effect: Starting the door frame on fire and not having any water to extinguish it with.

So irrationally, I start throwing snow at the door frame. Let me tell you, do not attempt this snow does nothing to extinguish a flame. Once I realize that the snow is doing nothing I run into the house and search for water, all I find is the water in the toilet. I fill up a small bucket and run back outside to throw it on the door frame. Of course Jon, being slightly more rational in the situation has turned the water back on so we can just use the tap. Smart.

I then learn a little bit about plumbing, including how to use these cute little clamps to patch a broken pipe. I have to credit my husband with a lot because he not only fixed the pipe but he crawled underneath the house and braved strong cold winds in order to do so. His clothing didn't fair well but it was a small price to pay to have water again! So I hope your weekend was better than mine!