what’s to lose except dignity?

We’ve been hauling water for 10 days now, since the pipes froze or broke somewhere that we’re not privy to, and the plumbers gave up.

It’s not especially great, but it’s not an unlivable nightmare either. We’re warm, all our our appliances and gadgets do what they do, we can flush the toilet with some forethought. We wear our clothes a little longer and try not to get too sweaty.

It’s fun to dream about hearing a sudden sputter from the bathroom faucet one day, or a shriek of delight from the kitchen…’The water’s back!’ But each day seems a slightly diminished challenge.

How we do adapt to life.

In this process, more than one person has mentioned that often pipes will freeze under a stone driveway because of the compaction of the snow and ice by vehicles constantly running over it. That’s certainly the case here, with the water line running directly under the most-trafficked part of the driveway.

So I figure it won’t hurt to try a gardening standby that I’ve used a few times; black plastic to trap the heat of the sun.

I don’t know if this will get us where we want to go any sooner. It might just take time, like garden soil.