Ladies and gentlemen, I no longer live in Mexico!
Yes, I can now drink the water from the faucet in my house. After extensive work by Henry the Plumber (the bill for which we have still not received and I'm frankly afraid of) and multiple costly filters, the lake water that we pump into our cisterns has been deemed acceptable for human consumption. We just had it tested by a real, science-y kind of lab, and they have confirmed that drinking from the faucet will no longer kill us dead.
I'm almost as excited about this as about the new dryer. Because let me try to explain how we obtained water before.
Before A. put in the lake pump (the installation of which would be a post in and of itself--suffice to say it was an impressive feat), we had to call a guy with a big water tank on his truck to pump water into the cisterns when they got low. And you never knew when he would be able to get here, which meant a lot of anxious rationing of water, lest the level in the cisterns get too low and burn the pump out.
Since that water was only filtered through a sediment filter, and an old, crappy sediment filter at that, there was no way we were using it for consumption. It was yellow, for God's sake. Which makes for a very disturbing bath, by the way.
BUT ANYWAY, we got one of those water coolers with 5-gallon jugs of water for drinking water. That's all well and good, but 15 gallons of water a month (all we were willing to pay for) barely covers the straight-up drinking water and leaves no water for cooking and such. But we didn't even want to use our tap water for cooking--it was that sketchy. So for cooking water, we (mostly I) filled up gallon jugs at various family members' houses in the village. And I HATED HATED HATED doing that. First of all, it made me feel homeless or something. Secondly, it always involved climbing stairs, and climbing up and down stairs with four gallons of water, multiple times, is not a pleasant experience. And we were always running out, because I hated doing it so much I would put it off.
NO MORE! There is nothing so freeing as knowing I can safely drink the water from any tap in the house. If I wake up thirsty in the middle of the night, I no longer have to climb out of bed, maneuver the stairs, and trudge half a mile for water (perhaps a slight exaggeration, but the kitchen IS downstairs at the opposite end of the house, and that distance in this house is no joke when you're half-asleep). No more hauling of water jugs, no more paying for the water cooler every month, no more leaping towards new visitors to our home with cries of, "Don't drink the tap water!"
Potable water and clothes dryers. Blackrock has entered the 20th century.
P.S. I got another Mystery Link last night, this time from "Snow Bug." I appreciate the link to another blog with a bat story (but this woman actually killed the thing and brought it to be tested for rabies--we are not that responsible and I just want the monsters out of my house thank you), but Snow Bug, who are you? My sleuthiness leads me to suspect you live in a cold place, but other than that, I got nuthin'. Please, enlighten me as to your identity so I may thank you properly.
15 comments:
This is too funny. I grew up in the country where we had sistern water and my mother made us filter everything. I remember moving to the city and she helping me move into my firs apartment. I immediately got a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water from the faucet and said look mom, no dirt in my water, and if you try to make me filter, I will protest! Congrats on the clean water!
Cool. Eight years into the 21st century you finally enter the 20th. Next thing you know the womenfolk are going to think they can vote.
So are you still a woodchuck?
HAHHAHHA! Awesome.
I am much more grateful today.
I'm against tap water. I'm also against waste, so it's hard to justify the many bottles. I bought a water cooler for my apartment, so at least I know those bottles get recycled and/or reused, cutting down on waste. Anyway, what I was surprised about was your 15 gallons a month. That's it? I went through a five-gallon jug last week, and that was just for my drinking and coffee water; not even for cooking (I guess Miriam drinks from there too, but she doesn't drink nearly as much as I do).
Dangit. I used the wrong email. I forgot you didn't know that one. Why don't you just shoot me now and be done with it?
And now that you're not lugging heavy jugs of water, what will you be substituting for workouts?
Meadowlark, how many freakin' e-mail addresses do you have? Thanks for the link though. And trust me, hauling water is not even close to the only exercise I get daily. Let us not forget the hoeing (yes, hahaha) in the garden and hauling wood in the winter.
Sara--we used the cooking water for tea and coffee. The cooler water is only for plain glasses of water. I'm the only one home during the day, so it's mostly me drinking it. And I would often have to get an extra 5 gallons at the hardware store when we ran out before the next delivery. not anymore, though. Wheee!
Am I still a woodchuck? I don't know--what do you think?
your finally getting water!? did you know all about this before you married A. or did he pull a fast one on you?
Are you going to let the new dryer fool you into raising your standards? "Oh gosh, it's not so hard to do laundry now. I don't need to wear the same jeans for three days in a row any more." Losing your woodchuck-ness.
Or will you take the time saved to finally devote some effort to whittling on the front porch? Still woodchuck.
Krysta--well, we had water, it just wasn't anything you would want to drink. It's not as if I was hauling all our water from the well and bathing in a basin or something. That would've been a deal breaker for sure.
And I have not actually used the dryer yet, since I can still hang clothes outside to dry. The dryer will come into its own around November. And then who knows what I'll do with all my free time? Maybe I'll learn how to knit. HAHAHAHAHA!! No. Not crafty.
Congrats for easy water. I've always been able to drink water from the tap...ah, what we take for granted.
I'm loving your blog. Especially the post about your mower. I like to think I learned how to drive on our 1988 "Simplicity".
Kristin, please check my blog! You are -- deservedly! -- an award winner! Congrats! :-)
--Lennie
It's kind of nice to know that there was at least one other household in the country without potable drinking water. My grandparent's pumped their water from an underground mountain spring, only safe for drinking after you got sick the first couple times from it...
And they just replaced their wood cookstove 2 years ago, now that's living in the 19th century.
Congratulations! My god, you deserve it. You were camping, woman.
The water in our town is notoriously bad. We do cook with it, but wouldn't think of drinking it. We have a Brita pitcher and we buy far too much bottled water (we're lazy and wasteful that way). The worst part is that it turns our laundry yellow. I long for a filtering system for the whole house.
Hey Kristin,
Your mishaps with the water in your house remind me of mine... which involve a cistern, a tractor and its driver, who's sometimes too tired because he's worked in the fields all day to bring us water...
Enjoy your tap water !
Wow, someone in Morocco is reading this random collection of stories from my life in upstate New York. The power of the Internet.
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