Rants and Rambles

Arctic blast

For the last few days we’ve been under a southern drop in the jet stream that brought clear skies but temperature lows in the teens. Dry that’s not too bad with the right clothing; and I’ve not been going out that much anyway. But last night there was another shift bringing “moist” air up from the south hitting the cold mass over us. Of course that means rain, and with the ground and everything else frigid from the cold air, that really means freezing rain and a coat of ice everywhere.

The pump-house light

The shed over the water storage tank, the pump-house, is well built and insulated. The idea was to keep the pump and pressure tank safe, along with a place for a future water softener system. I put in a light that was also to keep it a little warm during cold nights to keep the pipes from freezing. One little detail though; a burned out bulb produces no light or heat. I’d forgotten to check it and some time last night we lost water (again).

With everything covered with a coat of ice, we couldn’t even get up the driveway to the car much less around behind the garage and up the hill to the pump-house. This morning, with last night’s low being only in the mid-20’s, I could get up to the pump-house the long way around (finding safe footing in daylight) and replace the light bulb. There were no burst pipes, just blocked. The pressure switch manual over-ride worked but couldn’t raise the pressure; but by 4 PM the heat from the bub had melted enough ice that I could reset everything, bring the pressure up and had water flowing again.

This one only cost the price of a light bulb that I should have rememberd to change in the first place. I got off easy this time.