All the water we want!!! ---and other updates

A while back we mentioned that our excitement over our Bison water pump was dampened (sorry) by what the Bison folks surmised was a break in our water line that caused the pump to lose pressure. We thought we were looking at a long winter of 200-stroke primes and water-line excavation come spring, but it was manageable. Well, a few weeks ago we got up one morning to discover that no amount of pumping would produce any water. I bathed with what was left on the woodstove and went off to work, wondering how on earth we would manage with no water, leaving Joe staring bleakly at the pump. Late that evening I returned, to find Joe sitting at the table, looking, I thought, insufficiently miserable for someone who had no access to water. "Go over and try the pump," he said.

"Why?"

"Just try it."

I lifted the handle, getting ready to settle in for a few hundred strokes. I lifted up, began the downstroke . . . and felt resistance. Pressure! I heard gurgling. I brought down the handle and water surged out of the pump into the sink. I looked at Joe. He nodded, "Go on." I pumped again, and again, and each time, fresh, cold water gushed out. "Woo hoo! What happened?" I was pumping merrily away. "This is awesome!" Joe came over and quietly placed a small, dark object on the counter. It was a rock, about the size of a dime. "I found that stuck in the valve," he said. Apparently he'd spent the better part of the day disassembling and reassembling the pump, finally dismantling a part he hadn't been able to get apart previously. Time was never better spent. Life is good!

We have come up with a couple of makeshift methods to ease washing and bathing until such time as we get a gravity system rigged. One is a simple plastic trash can mounted above the bathroom sink, with a hole drilled toward the bottom and a spigot installed. We fill it once a day and have "on-demand" water for tooth-brushing and hand/face washing.

We have also rigged a way to shower! After looking at camp-style showers like the Zodi Extreme, which pressurizes via a hand pump, we bought an inexpensive stainless steel garden sprayer. I then headed to our local hardware store (the employees of which are my heroes, day after day). After having shown up with that blue plastic trash can, looking for help making it into a hand-washing station, they weren't the least bit surprised when I showed up with a garden sprayer and asked for help turning it into a shower. I went home with some plastic hose, a flow-amplifying shower head, some clamps, and some fittings to allow us to disconnect the tank for refilling. It's pretty slick! We fill it with hot water, pump it about 30-40 times, and get about a five-minute shower with less than two gallons. You do have to pump it again about half-way through your shower, but I have read that this is also necessary with the Zodis.

What else? Joe got the storm door installed on the kitchen side. The effect of 18-inch-thick walls is that you end up being able to stand between the storm door and the inside door: it's like an air lock! This has greatly reduced floor drafts.

During Molly's recent visit, Joe and Molly built a nifty trestle table with benches that fit underneath. This way when we don't have company, which is most of the time, the benches don't clutter up our small space, but can be pulled out when we do have visitors.

Oh, and while Ian was home, he built us this extremely cool rig for the kitchen counter extension, which in the "up" position holds the counter securely and can't be knocked aside, and which swings down between the counter legs, allowing the counter to fold down completely flat.

We probably won't be accomplishing much in the way of major projects over the next month or so, as both of us have full-time job commitments in February. Jobs get in the way of so much productive work! But we are lucky enough to have them this year, by all accounts. 

We hope 2010 finds all of our far-flung family and friends healthy, safe, and secure.