It is Always Something

I had big plans for yesterday. After working so hard this week with the sugar cane and finally finishing a new dress for Gabrielle, I was going to burn off the weeds in the garden and play catch-up in the kitchen and make salsa and sauerkraut.

I should have known when my only hairbrush broke first thing yesterday morning to go back to bed and skip the day. But I wanted to be productive. So fighting nightmarish paranoia, Gregory and I went outside to burn off the weeds. The weeds look like dried prairie grasses and there is dry brush everywhere, for miles. I just knew I'd start a forest fire or burn down the pool deck.

When we finally started after a great deal of time wetting down the areas we didn't want to burn, we couldn't get the weeds to burn. We dragged tons of pine cones and dried branches over and built bonfires strategically throughout the garden. The branches burned. The pine cones burned. The dead weeds did not. They did however, scratch us up and give us allergy symptoms. In the end, we allowed the fires to go out and dirty and smokey, we returned to the house for showers.

I discovered the dead hot water heater right after stepping into the shower. Praise God it was hot enough outside to prevent a cold shower from feeling like torture. In fact, I suppose the timing on the water heater's demise was good since a cold front is due to blast the area with winter weather today. But we sure don't have the money for a new water heater.

I probably should have figured out something was going wrong when my laundry room and home to the water heater kept flooding yesterday. But Kurt blamed it on a probable hole in the hose to the washing machine. (Kurt still thinks there may be problems with that hose since the flooding stopped when I turned off the water to the washing machine. I suggested we focus on getting back the hot water before chasing other problems.) I really should have stopped to think when we kept running out of hot water the last few days. We never run out of hot water.

Wondering if we could put Christmas off a couple months without the kids noticing, I called Kurt in Foley. He arranged to take the day off today to fix the water heater. (Living in a small town is so different than living in a city. When things break, you can't just call someone to fix them. There may not be anyone with that job description in the area. No wonder people in the country are more self sufficient - they have to be.) We planned for Kurt to pick up a new water heater and bring it home. Then I called my friend Darlene and told her my tale of woe.

Darlene tried to convince me our power company gave away free water heaters. I told her I thought that unlikely and I convinced HER there were no free water heaters. So Darlene's husband Mark got on the phone and told me to call the power company for a water heater. I still couldn't imagine it. So I called Kurt to try to get him to call the power company. He wouldn't do it. So sheepishly, I called, expecting to be embarrassed.



The power company actually does give away water heaters! Granted, I had to pick it up and we have to install it, but fortunately, Darlene's husband has a pick up truck and the two of us got the water heater home. I'm still amazed. Of course Kurt immediately pointed out the lack of an energy star rating. Moreover, the water heater's label clearly shows it is a bit of a power hog. Kurt figures the power company is actually selling these things on time. You pay for it with higher power bills.

Right now Kurt is in the middle of figuring out how to install one of these and I am hoping for a hot shower before too long - especially since we are supposed to take our sugar cane for juicing this afternoon. The whole thing worked out well because we need Kurt's pick-up truck for the sugar cane and but for the water heater, the truck would have been in Foley. Today was the only day we have access to the cane juicer. God is good and truly does work all things for good!

The old water heater looks exactly like the new one. I'm wondering if we could build a smoker out of the old water heater. It looks like a smoker. I wish I had more tool skills. I have lots of good ideas and little talent for implimenting them.

In the meantime, I finished Gabrielle's Christmas hat.



I also started a new pair of socks.



I can't believe how quickly Christmas is coming. Knowing how much I want to make before then, I really need to focus. And it would be nice if things would stop breaking around here.