Well Darn It

It was 15 degrees F this morning at 6:00 a.m. We left all the faucets in the house running last night and a hose running to the drainage ditch outside. We thought this would protect us from freezing pipes and it did. However, the pressure switch on the well froze. The well shut down.

My dear husband, Robert, is the president of our small mutual water company that serves 40 residences. He went out to check the pressure switch. He put it on manual to allow the pumps to fill the tanks. He knew everyone in the neighborhood would need their morning coffee water.

But you can’t leave the switch on manual for too long because the tanks would fill to bursting. DH had to keep going out to the well every thirty minutes or so and turn it off and on. He was our “automatic” pressure switch for the morning. When the sun finally shone on the device it went back to working as designed.

Our cleaning ladies arrived and kicked us out of the house. (They didn’t really kick us out, but our house is too small for three of them and two of us.) We toured the island in the car with the heater turned up high. It was too cold to sit around outside.

The well guy from JJ’s Well came mid morning and insulated the exposed pipe going from the pressure tanks to the pressure switch. We just don’t expect such cold weather in California. I hope the insulation works tonight, and so does DH.

This is my excuse for not getting my other circles finished. I’ll start on them in a little while.