As in "sprung a leak"! We went to the family cabin for spring break last week. It was wonderful as always. And it is always an adventure. You'll remember last year our Jeep broke down delaying our arrival. We finally pulled into the driveway in the middle of the night and had to literally crawl up the driveway to avoid sinking into waist deep snow. That was awesome!
Well, this time the weather was gorgeous. We arrived in the early afternoon. The snow was soft and a little slushy, but we had remembered our snow shoes and even a sled to haul our gear into the house. I know brilliant, right? We were feeling pretty good about things.
I left the boys to haul in all of the stuff and set about prepping the cabin. We lit a couple of fires in the fireplaces and turned the heat up a bit to take the chill off. Then I went down to the basement to turn the water on. I flipped a few switches and water began pouring out of the ceiling in at least two places. Uh oh. Not good.
Flip the switches back off. Put the snowshoes back on. Head back down the driveway to get my honey. He comes back to the house with me and confirms that yes indeed we do have a problem. We decide to just unpack anyway. We can get by for a day if we have too. We can always go to the big city and crash at my brother's house if needed. But let's give it a try.
I started melting a big pot of snow right off the bat. We just had an eight hour drive and we really needed to have functioning toilets. If you know what I mean. The snow was a little dirty and there were some pine needles mixed in. But it did the trick. Thanks goodness for snow! Then, I called my brother/owner of the cabin and he suggested that I call a plumber-- we were not really expecting that he would be able to come and help us until the next day. But, much to our delight, he said that he could be there within the hour. YES! Plumber to the rescue! To make a long story short...he came and set to work. He stayed for a very long time! I think he finally went home around 11pm. Our two or three leaks turned into six then nine then twelve! He wasn't able to fix them all because he ran out of parts. So he capped all of the ones he could find and tried desperately to get us some water for the night. We thought he had done it, but the next morning we found another one. So we had to just keep the water off. He thought he would be able to come back the next afternoon. But he ended up getting detained in another town. He eventually came back the day after that and after another two or three hours, we were as good as new. Now before you think we were completely out of water for three days, let me just say that my husband is a genius!! He had the plumber put in a new valve that first night that allowed us to completely shut-off the water to the house, but we were able to use a spigot right where the main water line came in. So we did have water. Cold. Clean. Delicious. And we had to haul it upstairs with buckets and bowls. But we were so so grateful.
It was really quite fun. Our little pioneer experience. We hauled water up many times a day. We heated it in big pans on the stove. We kept buckets of water by the toilets to allow us to flush them. We washed our dishes by hand in big tubs of water. We even filled the sinks and tubs with water for sponge baths. Lucie was the luckiest one. She fit in the sink. The kids thought we were crazy. They had never seen such a thing. The experience was worth it just for that.
I won't lie to you. It was really nice when we had running hot water. Just a lot more convenient. But nice to know that we can be resourceful when we need to be and get along just fine. We had a blast all week long. We slept in and ate a lot. We made a lot of treats. We watched movies and read books and put puzzles together. We played games and goofed around.
It was perfect! Just what our little family needed. We are so fortunate to have such a great family (immediate and extended). And so blessed to have a wonderful place to escape to. Thanks Uncle Eric!!
(finally seeing eye to eye with the "bear")
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