Comments on: More Snow & Zero Degrees [Updated]

By: K.J. Webb

K.J. Webb — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:28:21 +0000

Here in a supposedly civilized city, the capital of Canada, back about 10 years ago the water pipe from the main into our house froze up solid, many feet below the surface of the earth. That situation lasted for 2 weeks. We slept at the house, but got a room in a nearby fleabag hotel, which the respective members of our family visited to bathe, shave, wash up and haul water from. It was actually sort of fun, I thought (not my wife) but since then, when the temperature stays low (I mean really low, days on end below and often far below zero fahrenheit) we run a tap with a trickle constantly day and night to keep the agua moving enough to avoid the icy claws advancing on it. Those claws don’t really release their hold until May.

–That may sound bad, but I still maintain that there’s nothing more chilling than a raw West Texas wind when you’re working outside and wearing only the flimsy jackets we wore in my youth or you’re getting up in the morning in a flimsy unheated house.

By: karen

karen — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:00:59 +0000

we just finished a ten day stint hauling water – 10 DAYS!!!
We solved part of the no water problem by getting a sawdust commode; octagon shaped, nicely crafted. Now the airstream guests will be happy as it will be moved there tomorrow.

The wind took the canvas canopy off on one side of the 1969 Globetrotter and blew the door open. Hubby’s son had glued the inside knob on….so the replacemet lock/knob deal is waiting it’s turn while the old set is hacksawed off?

Moving from Minnesota in 1998, we laughed when folks said it was cold in New Mexico. This year almost had us to our knees….(before the new commode) that is.

Ah, running water. Three days under a tarp at night may have solved the problem where the pipe was less than 12″ underground. Or maybe it was the chanting…cursing…begging…

Our water source is .2 of a mile away through a pipe from the UWC, a neighbors’ yard, up a hill, under a one-lane road, and finally alongside our slanted up-hill driveway. Thankfully, it wasn’t a broken pipe, imagine tracking that!

So much for global warming.

By: K.J. Webb

K.J. Webb — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:19:53 +0000

There’s some kind of perverse feeling of accomplishment in just putting your head down and surviving. I say that about life in general, but the thought has lots of specific applications. It’s often used to explain the allegedly different national characteristics of northern peoples – Canadians, say, as against Americans. The proposition is that Canadians, with their long winters, are focussed on just getting through it all, and that this makes them less flamboyant, less adventurous, less likely to take risks (enough of that exists from the get-go). Americans, well we know what Americans are (or think we do) – gamblers, focussed on achievement and accumulation, while we collect our pensions and visit our state-run doctors, and so on and so on. No explanatory principle can explain as much as that sets out to explain, but there could be some modicum of truth in it, speaking as one who has lived both in the South and the North.