Water, Water, Every Where

This morning I dropped down into our water meter hole to fully dig out the meter and the pipes leading to it, so we could put the hair dryer directly on the pipe there and maybe thaw whatever ice was causing the water blockage.

I had to do it because A. is too big. Even I could only do it by squatting while I cleared the dirt. Ow.

The hair dryer duly applied, A. checked the outside tap after a few minutes of heat. The pipe for this runs underground directly from the meter and doesn't share any pipe with the indoor water. It hadn't been running, either, which is what made A. think that maybe the problem was in the meter set-up.

But when A. checked it . . .

Water!

As A. so drolly remarked, having water on our property outside the door brought us up to the level of a more prosperous third-world country. My response to that was the level I was hoping for was one that would enable me to shower in my own house.

This was not to be yet, though.

Still no water indoors, which meant some other frozen spot under the house. Those pipes are a lot less accessible, and anyway we didn't know where the problem was. We just left the space heater going under there, and also set up our big box fan to blow the 50-degree outside air under the house.

I was hopeful, but still really wanted to take a shower, so I actually drove 18 miles roundtrip to the school to take a shower at noon. Worth it.

At 1:30 p.m., I was sitting in the living room when I heard the glorious sound of running water. We had left the tap in the kids' bathroom open, since it had had a steady slow drip all the time. What I heard was the water rushing out of that open tap. 

I ran to the bathroom, confirmed the running water, and shouted "WATER!" to A. in his office on the other side of the bathroom wall.

Then we went around checking all the taps in the house and found all of them were running.

The first thing I did was a load of laundry, because it's almost 60 degrees today, and will not be this warm again for some time. I don't know if it will dry all the way on the line in just a few hours, but I can always finish drying it in the house overnight.

The next thing I did was a load of dishes in the dishwasher.

The water is running, and all is right with my world again. Amen.