At last, a little sun shine

[Smallpatch 8,993]

 Have you ever held your breath for about 9 days and especially double holding for those nights????

 

And something strange is happening as I sit here looking at the computer...the frame around this computer is flat and very shineeee and something caught my eye for the sun is lighting up the drops of water coming off the end of the ice cycles and is making it look like diamonds is falling but not straight down for the plastic is kinda wavily made and so the diamonds is weaving back and forth as they fall..... and the reflection is making those drops look about as big as lemons  falling..never seen anything like this before...made its an omen telling me I passed the exam for those last few days as I did not throw my wife out side to sleep in the snow after not telling me where she put the sleeping bags as the electricity went out again during the night as we were asleep...but am glad to see some drops of water out side.....for a change..And now after a few minutes later the ice cycles have faallen------yea!

[Gene Howe 34,356]

Certainly hope those icicles keep melting and falling. You Texicans have had a rough go of it.  

[HandyDan 92,135]

Happy for you Hess.  Once the heat builds and you can spare a little send it up my way. 

[Smallpatch 8,993]

Its very hard to watch those folks live like they lead the viewers in to believing their way of living is just great in Alaska..I suppose the money they get must keep them happy but me getting to take a shower every night makes up for not getting paid for living where the conveniences out way the money!

[HARO50 10,835]

2 hours ago, Smallpatch said:

I did not throw my wife out side to sleep in the snow after not telling me where she put the sleeping bags

Maybe it's HER reward for not throwing YOU out! Glad to hear you're getting back to normal, though!

[Smallpatch 8,993]

Thanks John. Were you born and raised around Ontario and if so does the weather ever get you down?

[HARO50 10,835]

I love the changing seasons, but to tell the truth, at my age winter does seem to drag on longer than it used to! I've spent days in the bush when the mercury hovered around -40 (Fahrenheit or Celsius, take your pick), and it never bothered me, but I was a lot younger then. At least we didn't have to wear insect repellent!

Edited Friday at 09:05 PM by HARO50

[Cal 8,349]

Jess, glad to hear that things might warm up.  How is the water situation for you?

And reading your first post, well, I wondered if maybe you had broke out the wine - or maybe Bernadette had made some of those "special" brownies!

[DuckSoup 3,700]

Glad to hear things are improving for you Jess.

[Smallpatch 8,993]

^{Cal this partner I have which older folks calls husband and wife made cakes and cookies and two or three different kinds of pies while I was worrying how to keep the pipes from freezing , every day even with no water and no electricity parts of the nights... and after setting those things out of the oven she would go out to her shop and work on her glass thingys.  But in the past running small streams of water always solved the problem only we had never been up against any minus degrees in our parts of Texas.}

  ^{My biggest worry  was where the water came into the house. I have a big filter and a few valves right there and I have heat tape wrapped around that stuff and its inside of a box I built of wood inside the under pinning which I can alway see the light is working on the heat tape but it takes to much extra work to get all the screws out to actually feel the tape to see if its warm....I kept telling myself this is no time to assume anything..so I ran water out of all the faucets in the house to be sure no freezing could occur....well on the coldest night about 10 the water began to stop flowing and I started trying to think of the best way to offset no water because it was freezing in the pipes and that my friend was the worse thing that could happen..and about 5 pm earlier that day wife got a call from water dept  telling every one to boil their water so that told me they were planning on the water to be pumping. I knew I should not turn the faucets off and if some were freezing up maybe I would not have as much replacing pipes.  In the end their pumps did freeze so with me leaving all the faucets on all the pipes from the street to the lake side of the house goes down hill so they were being drained out the end and nothing had to be repaired like some of the pictures on TV of the big beautiful two story homes where I assumed when those people heard there would be no electricity and no water they loaded up and went to a hotel or on a vacation and left all their pipes loaded with water and no where to expand after it started freezing...}

  ^{Only one thing I did find, the water first goes to the shop to a sink and a commode from a T then continues to the house and I did not put in a filter going in to the shop and now the commode does finally fill up and maybe takes ten minutes to fill but the sink does get all the water it got before...}

^{So now when it does warm up I intend to put a valve just on my side of the water meter  along with a faucet that I can open up to let all the water on my property to completely drain out . This will save me from worrying about pipes from freezing. I tried digging a deeper ditch with my back-hoe when I first put the water lines in but the sand stone was about 4 or 5 inches down so I did add a little more dirt on the top and crossed my fingers in 1999 and this was the first time I thought about how shallow those pipes were...}

 ^{My brother in law had climbed poles for about 20 years in Lake} Tahoe and when he bought the place next to us

here he had a rock digger make him a 4 foot deep trench for his water lines...cost him a fortune but had memories of all the trouble people had with their water lines...we joked with him about not needing to go that deep and he said actually he was hoping to get to some of the Texas oil while putting in the water lines. The oil around Abilene is about 700 foot deep where the oil around Odessa is 8 to 10,000 or something like that.

[Cal 8,349]

Sounds like you were able to dodge a bullet there Jess.  Maybe if you are lucky it will be another 1,000 years before this is an issue again?

[Smallpatch 8,993]

Cal when I first read your reply I could have sworn you guaranteed

this would not happen again in 1000 years.

  But if you are in the giving mode I will take just 10 years of not

having to worry about what might happen under the house!!!

  So what are you guys going to do with you getting rid of some

important wood working tools. This one couple took a few years

and took pictures of every post office in Texas along with  pictures

of where all the little towns used to be that have vanished.....

meaning they drove every road in Texas and have pictures to prove

 it.

      By the way, have you ever got to see any of the episodes

of the Texas Country Reporter with Bob Phillips.. I think his stuff is

 on Face Book. The last show I saw was this guy who makes pictures

using dried wild rice leaves. Never heard of any one doing this. The only

tools he uses is a razor blade and a little bowl with the color stains and

I guess glue also. And not even a fancy little holder for the razor blade.

      Also after the water pressure got back up to normal the commode now

refills as it use to. 

.

 

[Cal 8,349]

Sorry Jess - no warranty expressed or implied!

What we hear on the news now is that you are going to be needing a mortgage on the house to pay your next electric bill!  A guy they interviewed said his last months bill was about $50 and his new bill was like $3500! And for folks with auto-pay... their bank accounts just got drained

But I hear that it's nice in Cancun at this time of the year...

Hoping the best for you.  Glad that your water is back up to what it should be.  Are you still having to boil your drinking water?

[HandyDan 92,135]

[Smallpatch 8,993]

I think the boil water thing is on till someone says otherwise...reminds me of watching some bloopers where this guy was flipping meat patties as he was cooking them on the grill and one hit the floor. He reached down and picked it up and politely laid it on the bun as if nothing happened...so peeing in the water as they are getting it ready to go out the the folks might be the reason for the boiling???? I'm not sure if my whole house filter system covers that in the descriptions on the label though??

 

Don't know how the guy got the electric bill in the middle of the month but maybe they had him on daily pay for the strangest reasons.!!

 

Hard to comment on politicians doing stupid things for that is what is wrong with our country from day one...as soon as they are elected they have access to all the recorded corruption that has occurred since 1776 so they can continue the trend..makes it easier to pick and choose the easiest paths.

 

Any elected office should have a one year hitch serving the people and not one day more... I'll say no more????? 

 

Did you find the Texas Country Reporter with Bob Phillips...This is the one thing coming out of Texas worth mentioning...

[Smallpatch 8,993]

Dan this is where the politicians get their hot warm air from. But don't they call it pork where one official says if you vote for my bill then I will also vote for your bill in return never even knowing or caring what the others bill consist of...Money is never no issue. Or if the bills would help or harm the voters????

Edited Monday at 03:16 PM by Smallpatch

[Cal 8,349]

21 hours ago, Smallpatch said:

 

Did you find the Texas Country Reporter with Bob Phillips...This is the one thing coming out of Texas worth mentioning...

 

Haven't yet Jess.  I don't do the facebook thing.  Two of the wife's sisters - one you met, one you haven't - just got into a peeing contest on facebook - and now each of them swears they will never have anything to do with the other   The topic - politics - go figure...

Sixty somethings acting like six somethings.  Nope, I don't do the facebook thing.  I know it can be a good thing, but I am pretty happy and pretty busy without it.

 

And I kinda got off on a tangent.  The sun did come out here yesterday and temp got to 69*.  Sunny and pretty cool this morning, but supposed to hit 70* today

Edited yesterday at 12:57 PM by Cal

[Smallpatch 8,993]

I also don't do Face book or any other or you tube. I did post a bunch of pictures on FB long ago but never go back to it for many months.

[Gunny 56,057]

53 minutes ago, Smallpatch said:

I also don't do Face book or any other or you tube. I did post a bunch of pictures on FB long ago but never go back to it for many months.

 

 

My wife and I have a common account on FB. Never post, just say... Nothing. Drives them nuts.