Close to Nowhere

A few weeks ago our well broke and we had to have a well man come out and work on it.

Mr. Carpenter, an awesome well guy, came out promptly and had it fixed quickly.

I’m assuming that everyone reading this has been without water at some point. We go without water frequently. When you’re on a well and your power goes out (which ours does frequently) you have no water. Even in the bathroom.

We have a big nice generator, given to me by a dear, sweet friend, who lived in Oxford at the time. (She and her new husband now live in Red Banks so I guess she’s regretting that gift now).

With the generator, we have power for my air concentrator (I’ve been on oxygen for a few years now), the refrigerator, a few lights and my phone charger. No water in the ice maker though, No water in the kitchen or bathrooms either.

I have a dream of getting a solar powered generator for the well, one we can turn on from the house. I have a family member who is an electrician. I guess he’s a relative. My oldest granddaughter is married to one of his brothers. He’s my favorite of Tim’s brothers. At any rate, he says it can be done.

If you live in or around Marshall County you know how frequently our power goes out. It’s so miserable. In the summer no air, in the winter no heat. It’s so frustrating to be at the stove cooking and without warning, the power goes out. Food is ruined. Our generator keeps the refrigerator going and we can make sandwiches in the near dark, but when you have a pot of spaghetti half cooked and you have to throw it out, it’s very frustrating.

I’m sure there are quite a few folks with health problems as bad or even worse than my son and I have. I don’t even want to imagine what they go through.

Throws me back to the winter of 1994 and the great ice storm, thirty years ago. Can you believe that? We heated snow water on my daughter’s gas stove; we had close friends staying with us as we had a gas heater on the wall. They had two small children, in addition to all of us. Looking back it was a good time of working together and struggling together, and believe it or not, laughing together.

It’s amazing how one broken well brings back all these memories.