It’s Tuesday morning and I’m sitting in the living room by the windows so I can look out at this shiny new day. We’ve had a couple of geese hanging around. They had taken to perching on the roof and making a lot of noise before swooping down right in front of the windows and out over the lake, honking all the way. They may have moved on though, found a more secluded nesting spot or maybe gone to another part of the lake. 

We’ve been home for a week now, Lori and I, and as much as it would have been nice to have been able to just crash and re-coup for a few days, t’was not to be. Lori got home a couple of days before me and found that the house water wasn’t working…aahhh! You don’t realize how completely dependent on water we all are until it stops running. 

I had her try the only obvious remedy…check the circuit breaker to make sure the juice was flowing…it was. Oh well…nothing to do but wait for me to get home…maybe check into a hotel for a couple of nights…but she said she had plenty of drinking water (we buy 20 litre jugs) so decided she would tough it out for a day but would get a room for us for when I returned so we could shower up and get ready to tackle the problem. 

As it happens, the lake is at an all time low. Not for lack of spring run-off but because of it. There are concerns again this year of severe flooding so the folks in charge of the dam downstream have been draining the lake since January, thus making it possible to walk all the way out to our intake valve and check it out. Upon hearing of Lori’s distress our good neighbour, Larry, donned his chest waders and did exactly that. It turns out the foot valve (intake) was completely clogged and needed to be replaced. 

As I already knew what the job was by the time I got to Kelowna, I picked up a new foot valve and assorted other necessary parts and, with the help of a friend, got into my own waders and strolled out to change it. (OK, so ‘stroll’ is a little droll…the valve is about 500 feet out and the water was hip deep and the bottom is slippery silt and you need to bring a rake to balance lest you tip sideways and drown) but we got it done. Total cost…$100.00. 

Had this clog not become apparent until the lake was full the job could not have been done without a boat and someone to dive down and bring up the line… which would have been many times more expensive IF we could find someone up to doing it. So what had at first seemed like a bad break and a pain in-the-ass turned out to be good fortune…we had the water running by Monday evening. 

That was day one of my relaxing return home. The rest of the week was equally busy. Spring at a cabin by the lake does not allow for a lot of down time. The next day I took advantage of the low water levels and got out in the mud to dig my waterline down into it…into the mud that is. Hopefully this will help prevent ice damage should next winter be as chilly as the last two. Whatever happened to ‘el Nino’? Did he give way to his mean sister forever or  will he make a return visit next winter and give us a break? 

Sigh… 

Anyway…I’m starting to come around…getting a handle on the yard work, the cleanup, the hose repairs and the rapidly growing weeds and grass…catching up on sleep and eating my own cooking, which I have to say, beats the hell out of 90% of the hotel meals…make that 99%…oh, what the hell…it beats the hell out of all of them. I dressed in my work clothes yesterday but didn’t do anything…that felt REALLY good. 

I may just do that again today…we’ll see. 

Cheers!