What my past few days have consisted of.....

Where do I start.....

Let's start with this past Saturday when the temperature reached a balmy -42C here. Our water system decides to crap out. We also have a boiler that needs water pressure in case it needs to draw more water. So here it is -42 with no water and there is heat but we have to monitor it carefully.

Sunday starts out with us discussing the issues with our water system. It could be one or more of several issues we are dealing with.... water pump, pressure switch, pressure tank, leak in the suction line, faulty foot valve, no water in the well, crack in the water line underground and I am sure there are several other issues that could account for our problem.

We have changed out our water pump 4 times in 13 years. They keep crapping out and I had mentioned a while ago that I thought our water pressure tank was not working right. So now it is Sunday and we are trying to deal with the problems. The temperature here was so cold that only Siberia had recorded a colder temp. We live out in the country so there is no 24 hour hardware store open. So after screwing around and arguing for most of Sunday we are still without water and I am melting snow so that we can water our animals because at -40C animals kind of need water and we have none.... zippo... zilch.... did I mention the -40?

So Monday comes and it is decided to buy a new pressure tank and a new pump. So after farting around for a couple of hours, hubby goes into the city to buy them and he takes 4 of the 6 kids with him. Of course as soon as he leaves my one son who is 9 brings me back a rooster from the barn. Its comb and gobbledygook is frozen and he has a crap ball the size of the grapefruit frozen on his butt. I can't even butcher him because we have no water. What had happened was said son left the barn door wide open at -35C (it warmed up 5 degrees yay!) for several hours.

So now I have no water, my dishes are piling up and a rooster with crap on his butt in my back porch. I am melting 500 litres of snow to get 20 litres of water and of course the children define clean snow as snow filled with sand and pine needles. So as my naturally scented snow is melting I am trying to wash the dishes up and melt enough water so the animals can have some too.

Hubby comes back 3 hours later with a new tank and pump and hopefully enough fittings to switch over. By now the rooster's poo ball has fallen off and of course has missed the towels and paper towel that we had put down. So no water and a grapefruit size chicken shit ball is smeared down the side of the box of my new wood lathe and is sitting on the floor. The kids and hubby are looking at it and of course no one can grab any paper towel to wipe it up because of course eau du chicken shit is a wonderful aroma in a house. So I wipe up the crap and have to try and find somewhere to wash my hands off and not contaminate my dishwater with poutry poo.....

So we are downstairs and the pump is coming out and we are taking off the old pressure tank. Low and behold there is water sloshing in the pressure tank which means it was faulty, I guess having a pressure tank that is 20+ years old might be part of the problem. So the new pump gets installed and the new pressure tank is also installed. There are some leaks in the fittings but we have water. I go upstairs to open the taps to let any air escape the lines and I do the back bathroom, the back porch and the kitchen. Then I turn to walk through the kitchen when I hear a brawch brawck. Here Mr. Rooster has decided that my house is much better than -40C and is walking around. After I continue purging the lines I have to go on another chicken shit hunt. Just a side note, imagine the laundry that is piling up after 3 days of not being able to wash anything. Of course the kids toss the clothes on the floor in the back porch because 7 clothes hampers and 8 laundry baskets aren't enough (even though most are empty). So I get to hunt for chicken poop in the clothes on the floor and find that my cats (not so much my inside cats but my outdoor cats that we brought in because it was frigging cold) have been peeing in the clothes pile. Remember I just got water back.... in case it was forgotten...

So yay water but we still have lots of air in the lines and the pump is bucking off and on when it reaches the shutoff pressure. So obviously there are still issues. On Tuesday hubby went to get the new fittings to change out the leaky ones. He decided to change it out at 1:30 in the morning. It is leaking less but it is still leaking and there were some other issues that happened after which caused me to swear. I am sure I would have made a sailor proud. So it took us until after 5 this morning to try and get the problems resolved. We still have water but the setup is far from ideal and we still have lots to try and figure out. So after sleeping in because we were tired hubby went into work late. Within 20 minutes of him being gone, the kids bring me a bunny that has a frozen leg. So off to the bathroom I go to thaw the leg out without causing too much damage to the tissue. In the meantime I have my 2 youngest who keep running in and out of my bedroom where our 5 - 4 week old kittens are. In the process they have let a couple of my cats, who find bunnies to be tasty, in to the bathroom. So I am trying to fend off these cats from eating the bunny that I am trying to save.

I am talking on the phone to my dad and to my husband, dealing with the kids trying to hold and cuddle the rabbit and the cats from eating the bunny. My 5 yo son has now discovered the Christmas gifts under the bed as he is trying to get the kittens. He spills the water dish I had in my bedroom which had been under a chair, of course my daughter moved the chair to get at the kittens. Then I hear meow meow and my 3 yo son has put a kitten in his little hidey hole by our closet amongst all the tubs and piles of clean laundry. So I have this injured bunny in one hand, wiping up water before it wrecks the gifts and rescuing the kitten from the 3 yo who just wants to be his friend.

Then I proceed to come into my office and put the bunny on a chair beside me. My 3 yo has now decided this bunny is his new pet and hugs, kisses and cuddles him. I had a flashback to my youth of that Bugs Bunny episode of the abominable snowman....