Never a Dull Moment, Episode 14,262

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Wonder how I got the number 14,262? That’s how many days God has given us since the last day of 1984. I don’t know exactly when I hung the “Never a dull moment around the Notgrass house” cross-stitch (that Ray had requested me to make) on the wall of our first little house in Mississippi, but the date beneath my initials is 1984. Since we haven’t lived a day filled with dull moments since then, I chose the number 14,262.

The story I am about to relate is not complaining—really it isn’t. I know that many of you have probably experienced what Ray and I experienced during the last couple of days for a lot longer than we did. I simply want to tell you about the never dull moments we lived on Wednesday and Thursday.

Ray’s doing well now, but he had the tummy flu from last Saturday until Wednesday. That’s why he didn’t think to check our propane tank. That’s not on my usual errand chart, and it never occurred to me to check it either until early Wednesday morning when I began to wonder how our propane was holding up after our super cold temperatures. Before I mentioned it, Ray was all bundled up to go outside, telling me he was going to check the propane. As Ray always says, “Great minds think alike, and so do ours.”

Soon Ray was stomping the snow off his boots at the side door with the news. Our tank was down to 10 percent. That’s not very good news when the temperature outside is -1º. Ray called our propane company who made no promises about what day they would come, but said they would put us on their list. Sigh.

The downstairs thermostat was set at 72º, but the indoor temp was around 60. Ray always has our faucets dripping when the temperatures get low and he continued to do so even while he was sick. And it worked, too, except in the bathroom that sits at the back of the house behind what was once an outdoor kitchen before previous owners closed it in to be part of the house. When we had central heat and air put in, the HVAC folks couldn’t find a way to get under that bathroom with ductwork. Years ago we had a mini-split unit installed in the way there, not knowing that when temperatures get as low as they did early Wednesday morning, those heaters can’t handle it and freeze up. Uh, oh. The dripping shower froze and so did the commode. That was the Southern way to say toilet when I was growing up, and I still have a hard time saying toilet. It’s a Southern girl thing. I didn’t know until our daughters were all grown up that my saying commode had embarrassed them terribly when they were children. But I digress.

We had a problem. We quickly went to the attic and dragged down our big black electric space heaters that look like miniature woodstoves with fake flames and everything. We put a little square space heater and one of the big black ones in the back bathroom to try to thaw out the commode and shower. It worked with the shower, but in mid-afternoon on Wednesday, a burst pipe began pouring water through the wall behind the commode. Ray went to the road and cut off the waterline to our house.

This is the message that I sent to our kids a little after 6:30 PM:

Well . . . Our saga began almost three hours ago when Dad found that the commode pipe in the yellow bathroom had burst. Several towels, several phone calls, and a service call from [a local HVAC company] later, we folded two quilts around two bed pillows and put them in a garbage bag, put another garbage bag on the open end and taped them shut, took our bundle outside to “insulate” the crawl space access by that commode and are waiting for a plumber tonight (slight chance), or in the morning. Meanwhile, our water and water heaters are turned off, and we hope very much that the propane delivery truck also comes tomorrow (they couldn’t promise). Now we sit on the couch to recover. Never a dull moment.

These are the pictures I sent with the text.

When the HVAC company came, they checked our propane and we were down to 7 percent. Not good. We were in quite a dilemma. How do we keep from draining the propane completely dry and still keep the house warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing? You know you are in trouble when a professional tells you at least twice during his visit, “I don’t know what to tell you.” He adjusted our thermostat so that the our dual fuel system would not switch to propane until the temperature reached 15 degrees.

The plumbers did not come. We slept toasty upstairs which has its own HVAC system, and came down in the morning to a downstairs temperature in the 40s. The plumbers came and capped the commode plumbing, but their company wouldn’t allow them to cut into our floor to do the other things we needed. After Ray’s pleading second call to the propane company, a truck arrived and filled our tank. Yippee!

Our amazing, heroic, long-serving handyman Ron arrived to save the day. Shortly after he got here, I sent this picture to our kids.

This was the caption:

A picture is worth a thousand words.

He stayed for about three hours and did lots of what needed to be done under the house—through the hole he cut in the grandchildren’s playroom floor. Not only did we need to move the toy cabinets and toy kitchen from that corner of the playroom, but Ron thought we should move lots of other stuff, too, because this is a very old house (c. 1840-1845). We’ve known for some time that we needed to pull out this floor and replace the beams underneath. It has been on Ron’s list and ours. He was afraid that the whole floor would fall in when he cut the hole. So now the loveseat and dresser and little toy piano and toybox and puppets and doll beds and dolls and toys are scattered in other rooms in the house until Ron is able to come back at the end of next week to start that major repair job! As I told our kids yesterday, “We have certainly moved a lot to have been in one place for 20 years!”

When Ron left, we still didn’t have running water because there was a frozen place somewhere in the main water line. He stayed as long as he could. Our handy son-in-law Nate offered to bring us some water yesterday afternoon and said that maybe he could help while he was here. Yippee! And thank you, Nate! He found the frozen place and got us going again!

As I told you, there is never a dull moment around the Notgrass house!

I will bless the LORD at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul will make its boast in the LORD;
The humble will hear it and rejoice.
O magnify the LORD with me,
And let us exalt His name together.
Psalm 34:1-3

 

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