Archives for January 2008

There’s ice where?

It’s been an interesting week on Mill Road. We must now rewind to Sunday. The over night low was a balmy 17 and the high was 34. Monday the high was a warm 28 with the low of 15. Tuesday 34/17 and Wednesday was 28/15. Yesterday (Thursday) was relatively warm at 36/27. Sounds like the top 2 measurements of a woman.

Anyway. I got up Sunday, took my shower and off I went to church. David had to work so he stayed home. The rest of Sunday was uneventful. Nice. Monday was Martin Luther King’s holiday and so MOST everything not retail was closed. When we got up… no water. So David went down into the basement and fiddled around and found… yes, an open window. David said that the cats opened it, but it could have been when the back door was slammed it popped the window. You really have to slam the back door to close it. So he closed the window and once the pipes warmed up and the water started to flow… we had a leak right where the water meter is attached to the pipe. Now when I say leak I mean a 1/2 gallon every 15 seconds – leak. GUSH. So off goes the water. Now, David who is VERY handy with plumbing could have maybe fixed it… but because it was right around the water meter… he didn’t want to “tamper” with it. Fine. No water Monday, but other than that, not eventful. Tuesday we called the Township and Rick Prewitt knew exactly what to do. There is a little plastic thingy on the water meter, that when it goes below freezing, it breaks creating a leak point preventing damage to the pipes and the meter. Kind of neat, good fore thought in the design. BUT, the little plastic thingy he needed was in Delaware. So David tells him it’s not a problem, just bring the part on Wednesday morning… at 6:30 am. At 6:30 am Rick was there and by 6:45 am Rick was long gone. Problem solved… we have running water again. About 2:30 pm David calls. The oil tank is on the letter M in the word EMPTY. So I asked, do you think we can make it until tomorrow. He said, I think so. I called the oil company and had them make a delivery… Yes I know I should be (for all of you home owners saying “you should be on automatic delivery”). Taylor said they would be out either that day or the next.

Well I must have heard David wrong. He must have said, I think NO. Because when I got home. No heat. Well, no heat from the oil burner. Fortunately we have enough space heaters and the house is super easy to keep warm. We put one space heater under the pipes in the basement – just in case, one in the living room and a 3rd upstairs. The one upstairs is really cool too. It was a Christmas present and it looks like a fire. And it’s actually very realistic – except for the fact it’s sitting in the middle of the hallway. It was fun sleeping by firelight.

So by Thursday morning at 9 am we had heat and water. Now I bet you’re wondering, but where does the ice come in. I mentioned frozen, but not ice specifically. Yes, it’s coming. I have cats as it evidenced by the pictures on my website. And one of the little beauties had an accident on the bed. Off come 3 comforters, a blanket, the sheets and the mattress pad. The mattress was spared. Didn’t that little bugger have good aim! So we have no clean linens. We have a wonderful washer – large capacity front loader that will take the king size quilts on the bed. But it’s not working. So we have to go the laundry mat. Not a problem, we know the lady the runs the one and it’s always nice to have a visit with Esther. Except she was done for the day by the time we got there. So David goes off with just a car load full of dirty laundry and in about an hour and a ½ he comes home with a car full of clean laundry. Wet, clean laundry.

See our dryer is working nicely. And it’s vented into the house and it helps to heat the house. So we clean at the laundry mat and dry at home. Since it was late, almost 9 pm, he just dried the pieces we needed to go to bed. A comforter, sheets & pillowcases. He left the rest in the car. Why not? It’s cold, the laundry will freeze and won’t get musty or yucky. This is were the ice comes in.

This morning David gets up, and puts some of the semi-frozen wet laundry in the basement, some in the dryer, and some in the living room. Off he goes for coffee. I come out, get in my car, see ice, grab my scraper and go scrape my car windows. So there I was, standing beside my car, no ice on the driver side windows. Ok, the sun had been shining on that side of my car, maybe it melted. So around to the back of my X I go to scrape… no ice. Now I know I looked in the rearview mirror and saw ice. So I opened the hatch and … tah-dah! Ice on the inside. Yup, the inside of my car was frosted up. Because of the humidity in the laundry… it created a nice frost on the INSIDE of my car. So I scraped the inside of my windows – rear hatch, passenger side front, driver side front and windshield. The windshield was fun. My scraper is old, so it’s got some dings in the blade that leave ice in place. Yeah, fun. So I couldn’t get all the ice off the inside. But on the good side… my windshield is cleaner than it’s been in a long time.

And that’s the end of this Adventure on Mill Road.