Power was out for six hours. This is a little dangerous in Canada...well...because things get cold! Brenda and I had just got home from the abbatoir with half a cow (all packaged) and we put it in the freezer. Half an hour later, the power goes out. Okay....its not cold enough to put the meat outside to let it stay frozen. In fact, except for the fact that it is freezing on contact, it is pretty much raining out there. Well, leave it in the freezer for now...keep the cover closed, it should be fine for a couple of days. Okay, the chicken was just about to be put into the oven, I can cut it apart and barbeque it. An inch of ice on the bbq cover...smash it off. Okay, got the thing started. it is taking a half hour to come up to temperature! Wind is still pretty high, keeps putting the bbq fire out.
Then the sump pump alarm goes off. Right. Basement is flooding from all this rain. Fine....I send up several hundred pails of water up the hatch in the floor, which gets dumped down the drain. Field calls from the security monitoring people, finally disconnect the damned thing. Security people call because it is disconnected. Leave me alone to splash in this water darn it!
Barbeque a lovely chicken. Bring in the stuff that is cooked because I can't wait any longer to eat...I am starved! Gorgeous meal by candlelight...delightful company. Oh crap...the rest of the chicken is still cooking! Yup, Bill, you burned the chicken! First bird I have burned, for, like, ever! Well, it was hard to see how it was doing in the dark....its all silouettes against the flames. Thats my story...I am sticking to it.
After dinner, was thinking about a nap. No such luck. Look down into the basement. Right, its about 15 centimeters deep. Not over my boot tops, but I'll have to do something right? Can't dump any more down the drain....the poor septic system can't take too much of that. So I rig a siphon from a garbage can and an old garden hose. Hose keeps getting stopped up with random bits of wood and flotsam, but generally it works.
I barely keep even with the incoming water. Sooner or later I figure, I will have to quit. Don't know how much damage will happen if I let it flood much higher though. Well, just keep handing those pails of water up to Brenda. Every once in a while, I would crawl out of that hole and walk around outside a bit, watching the ice gradually build up on things. You can tell the people who have home generators...they are the ones with the Christmas lights on so bright! I don't know why it is, but I don't begrudge anybody with the forethought to purchase a generator, but for some reason I don't understand, I just want to throw a rock through my neighbour's window for showing off those christmas lights!
Then the power went back on and things went back to normal.
The joys of home ownership.
Then the sump pump alarm goes off. Right. Basement is flooding from all this rain. Fine....I send up several hundred pails of water up the hatch in the floor, which gets dumped down the drain. Field calls from the security monitoring people, finally disconnect the damned thing. Security people call because it is disconnected. Leave me alone to splash in this water darn it!
Barbeque a lovely chicken. Bring in the stuff that is cooked because I can't wait any longer to eat...I am starved! Gorgeous meal by candlelight...delightful company. Oh crap...the rest of the chicken is still cooking! Yup, Bill, you burned the chicken! First bird I have burned, for, like, ever! Well, it was hard to see how it was doing in the dark....its all silouettes against the flames. Thats my story...I am sticking to it.
After dinner, was thinking about a nap. No such luck. Look down into the basement. Right, its about 15 centimeters deep. Not over my boot tops, but I'll have to do something right? Can't dump any more down the drain....the poor septic system can't take too much of that. So I rig a siphon from a garbage can and an old garden hose. Hose keeps getting stopped up with random bits of wood and flotsam, but generally it works.
I barely keep even with the incoming water. Sooner or later I figure, I will have to quit. Don't know how much damage will happen if I let it flood much higher though. Well, just keep handing those pails of water up to Brenda. Every once in a while, I would crawl out of that hole and walk around outside a bit, watching the ice gradually build up on things. You can tell the people who have home generators...they are the ones with the Christmas lights on so bright! I don't know why it is, but I don't begrudge anybody with the forethought to purchase a generator, but for some reason I don't understand, I just want to throw a rock through my neighbour's window for showing off those christmas lights!
Then the power went back on and things went back to normal.
The joys of home ownership.
5 comments:
I remember (when I was in midle school and high school) being woken in the middle of the night to go bail out the basement. Between Mom, my little sis, and me, we would generally manage to stay on top of things. Wet, cold houseshoes, wet, cold pajama pants sticking to my legs... Ahh, the memories. The night after Mom signed the paperwork to sell the house, it was raining buckets. Mom had tried to warn the guy who bought the house, but he had just brushed her off. Anyway, we went out to eat that night and just laughed and laughed about that basement.
hahahaha! make use with winter flooded basement by releasing some fish....that way you can catch 'em fish fresh into your bbq grill. hahahah!
any way you can seal off the basement cracks like a swimming pool and dig out water escape trenches when it gets warmer? mebbe grow water sucking trees too, around the property?
Fish. Hmmm. I suspect the moisture would play hell with the wood work.
Nah...I have a cellar. Stone walls. It comes in a thousand places.
You poor thing!
wow, you have serious ice up there. here, it lasts a day and its done. glad you both are safe.
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