November 22, 2007 

am currently munching on Caraway-Rye  toast and butter as I type this, warming up my outdoor clothing and my insides before I head out to the great white outdoors. I had to take the day off from one work today as... well, I knew it was coming, I just didn't know what or when... 

Single Homesteader Challenge #3

I knew I was going to have to deal with the pumphouse soon, but I was hoping I had more time and my first paycheck to deal with it (as I have not gotten it yet, will be the end of the month). I had no water this morning. The pipe coming out of the pressure tank to the house was/is frozen. That was a nasty surprise. I was really thinking I would have another month until the really cold weather would come in. I was not expecting things to freeze up like this at -5C as we get well into the -40C zone here in deep winter. All of the well components is inside a mostly well insulated pumphouse. I was really not anticipating problems this early on. 

So today I have went and bought R-40 insulation, 9 feet of heat tape, a thermometer for the pumphouse to hang at a low level to monitor the temperature at that level and borrowed a staple gun. In a month or so, I will buy a small heater to put out there to hopefully prevent this issue again.

Remember, this is the new well and pumphouse, so this is it's first winter and everything is untried for the cold we get here. Before everything used to be about 8 feet down in the old hand dug well, far underground. This system has not been trialed though any real weather yet. 

Shall I dare hope that things really do come in 3's and I will have smooth sailing from here on out? Yeah.. whatever... *L*

2:15 pm Update:

All I can say is... Thank the stars for 27 year old ConAir blow-dryers.  This particular blow-dryer has followed me to 5 countries over the years. It has painfully sucked my hair up into the intake more than a few hundred times. It has not been used so much on my hair since the 80's, when I had my hair feathered back like Heather Locklear (ok.. sorta like hers) as the blow-dryer had other uses for tanning hides, drying out wet boots, and convincing drying paint to dry faster. I thought about tossing it out recently and I am so glad I didn't. Now it has a new job as a pressure gauge/pump heater. Within 20 seconds it had water pouring out of the outdoor hydrant. 

It kept not feeling right that the pipes were frozen as there was water in the pumphouse at the spigot, but none to the outside hydrant nor in the house. And it didn't make sense as the pipe is buried 6-7 feet deep. It is not that cold ... yet.

I do call these little instances 'challenges' as many people I know in person and just through emails over the years, I can see getting overwhelmed trying to deal with the situations and say "I cannot do this" and sit down and cry. But in all honesty, these are not impossible tasks. I always know there is an answer somewhere to the problem and it is always do-able. You just have to be creative and brave enough to tackle it. Do I know anything about how all this stuff in the pumphouse runs? Heck no! But I had a crash course today in learning about them. Learning about them gives you a better playing field as then you are not scared of "whatever-it-is".  Part of homesteading is not having to rely on someone else and being able to be self reliant. A lesson which I have learned over and over and over again.

Oh.. and by-the-way... Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the United States. Sorry mom I couldn't be there this year as we had planned.