Well it's about time

It wasn't easy, but my water supply line is unfrozen and the house now has water. The water line was frozen for all of 8 feet. It's never even been close to that bad before. The good news is that none of the plumbing leaked. At least that part of the shutdown went as planned. Having water frees up time and energy for other things -and there are plenty of other things to deal with.

Hauling water, even from the well on my own property, takes time and energy. We are extremely frugal with our water used, especially by American standards, but it seemed I was always hauling water.

It's good to have backup plans and systems. The problem is that every backup is harder than the thing it replaces. If was easier, it would be the primary system. During a disaster more than one system goes down at the same time.

For example, take any sort of major natural disaster. Power, water, waste removal, communications, public safety -just about anything in modern life we take for granted goes away. A well prepared person may have contingencies for the loss of all those things. However, does he have the personal strength and energy to do all of them? Does he have others in his extended group who can pick up some of the slack? That's one reason community is important.

A person's response to the loss of a critical service may depend on the length of the emergency. With my water out of service a lot of my hand carried water was used to flush toilets. If for some reason water service was never coming back a lower effort sanitation system would need to be used. Maybe I'd build a composting toilet or an outhouse.

One bright spot about this little challenge: my lovely wife never really complained. She knew I was doing all I could to fix the situation. Besides, after all that time on a small sailboat, we are living large.

-Sixbears