We Get Running Water and Ponder the Lives of Those Who Never Had It

Well, now that I've depressed us all with that photo of the inside of our torn-apart hot water heater shed, I'm happy to report that all is back in order today--neat, tidy, and shipshape--and looking like nothing ever happened. It's too dark out still for me to get a photo of the little shed, all restored and looking much better, but it is so. We have water, blessed running water. We have it in hot, and we have it in cold. We don't have any yet to the back bathroom (this house has multiple additions, built on over time, and that back bathroom is pretty darned far from where I sit in the original front room of the oldest part of the adobe), but that will come once the plumber and his good men have made sure all their customers have running water of one sort or another.

In the meantime, I've been reading a book about people who lived in far more ancient adobe structures in this part of the world with no running water at all. The book is called House of Rain, and is written by Craig Childs, the wonderful Southwest nature writer.  According to the back flap, he is a "naturalist, adventurer, desert ecologist, and frequent contributor to National Public Radio's Morning Edition."

The Ancient Puebloans, formerly called the Anasazi, disappeared from their elaborate cultural centers in the 14th century--leaving their cities pretty much intact, with the dishes still on the table, so to speak. Where they went has always been a great mystery in this part of the world, and Childs sets out to find what happened. Childs journeys through the Four Corners area of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado; then down into northern Mexico, tracking this vanished civilization.

In following the trail of these "lost" people, he makes the reader aware of the abundant archeological record that they left behind, just under the surface of our own towns, cities, and agricultural fields. I have the sense now that every rise in the landscape must hold some key to the mystery, some other piece of this old civilization's ruins. It's a bit like when I was a child and convinced that every rock I found was a geode, full of wonders within.

We have personally experienced this link with ancient times most strongly at Pecos National Historical Park, where we were stunned to realize that the place was littered with artifacts. What we had first assumed were pieces of rock alongside the paths were, when examined more closely, actually thousands and thousands of pieces of ancient pottery sticking up out of the ground.

I also came away from reading this book with a feeling of admiration--real awe, to be exact--at how today's Pueblo peoples have continued their culture and kept their secrets in the middle of a modern American society. We still don't know what happens down in their kivas, and I don't think we ever will. After all, as Childs tells us: It was none of my business, really, the private rites of another civilization.... These were someone else's secrets, not mine.

The Las Cruces Report: Early February and a Deep Freeze, Part 2

In our recent sub-zero weather here in New Mexico, our pipes froze last Wednesday and thawed on Friday. That was when we knew we had a broken pipe and got the water shut off at the main. Here it is Monday now, and we are still without running water.

Oh, we've seen our wonderful plumber, Paul, who is still his handsome, cheerful self, in spite of being absolutely exhausted from dashing from house to house on his list, deciding who has the worst water/pipe issues and which ones can be easily and quickly repaired. While he was here, he disconnected and pulled out our hot water heater and located the problem pipe. Sadly, it is inside of a wall behind our refrigerator. Because our job will take longer than most, Paul asked for our patience and will get back when he can to start ripping out the interior wall.

This really has a Third World look to it, don't you think? Who has a hot water heater located outside? The heater is now in the backyard (yes, even more charming) and the outdoor shed walls and pipes have been ripped about in the search for the leaking pipe

In the meantime, we've learned a few things about our modern dependence on running water. Although, as desert dwellers, we are always careful not to waste a drop, we find that we take for granted flushing toilets, washing hands, shampooing hair, taking showers, and doing laundry. On the other hand, we've discovered just how little water we can get by with from day to day, especially after the local grocery store started running out of drinking water. 

We also found just how hard it is to clean up a kitchen full of the pots and pans used to prepare Beez's signature white lasagna, which he considers a "must-have" for any Super Bowl party. Yes--we decided to go ahead with our party plans, and hosted a wonderful group of friends who kindly carried in their own water for flushing, and brought us drinking water, too!

They were from the parts of the city that still had running water. Even though water was not a problem at their houses, they had all experienced rolling blackouts with no electricity for several hours at a time, as well as the fear of no heat in freezing temperatures, due to the state-wide shortage of natural gas brought on by the increased demands. That was a very scary part of our recent brush with an arctic storm--our utility companies just weren't prepared to handle unprecedented energy demands and their own instrumentation apparently froze up. 

There is a lot of anger at the electric company--after all, people had tvs and heat pumps blow with the electricity surging off and on. While I don't think the company is to blame for the results of the kind of weather that hasn't been seen in our area for 60 or 70 years, I am very worried that with global warming adding more moisture to the atmosphere (as I understand it) that these kinds of winter "aberrations" will become more common. 

The Las Cruces Report: Early February and a Deep Freeze

Newspaper photo: Ice from somebody's broken pipe (Robin Zielinski/Sun-News)

The weather is the big news here, just as it has been nearly everywhere else this winter. According to the Sun-News, the temps were below freezing for over 91 hours straight over the last few days; that's some kind of new record. Here in the North Valley, we got down to -1 F.  At the 7MSN Ranch nearer to the center of the state and at a higher elevation, temps got as far down as 27 below!

Here in New Mexico's southern desert, we aren't prepared for this kind of weather, EVER. Our hot water heater is located outside on the north side of the house, and is housed in a small shed-like jog. You can imagine how well that works out in sustained, near-zero weather.

Yep, our pipes froze and we're pretty embarrassed. As New Englanders, we know how to prevent this kind of thing, but we were too snug and warm in bed to get up and deal with the issue. In our own defense, pipes have been bursting all over. The whole darned city is a mess.

We babysat our frozen pipes until things thawed out yesterday and the open faucets began to run free. Then there was that ominous sound of running water inside the wall and Beez took off for the main water shut off. That was frozen, and when I saw him heading out the door with a sledge hammer, I headed him off and called the water company before things got even worse. They managed to fit us into their gigantic list of people with emergencies and were outside within minutes because one of the water guys happened to be passing by.

So, here we are in the sunny Southwest with no running water. It's a clear day, and the temps will be above freezing--we'll even see 60 on Tuesday. We're not dealing with mountains of snow like our old neighbors back east. We have electricity and heat (more about that in the next post), so we can't really complain. But no water equals no bathroom facilities, which means we probably won't be hosting our first annual Super Bowl party tomorrow.

The plumber, who has always been on speed dial since we moved here, is so backed up that we have no idea when he'll be here to repair the pipes. There are stories of weary plumbers working almost around the clock.

Will our walls have to be ripped out? Will the repairs take up the whole carpet replacement budget? We were so hoping to get the next phase of the floor project done by spring. It looks like that is a dream deferred...

Images from Winters Past

Buried Bug

Back in New Hampshire where the snowfall is serious stuff, we misplaced our VW Bug one winter. We really love the "snow" here in Clovis--especially when we hear that some people clear off their sidewalks using a hair dryer! The buried bug photo just made Photo of the Day on the Clovis News Journal's online edition at http://www.cnjonline.com/sections/editors-notebook/photooftheday/. Too bad, it was just there the one day and I can't find a way to get to the photo archives, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Find the VW Cabrio

Snow up to the second floor!

Thinking About Fall in New Hampshire

Back in New Hampshire right now it is time for the big fall preparation for winter. Between Labor Day and Columbus Day it seems like there is never enough time to get everything accomplished. The days are crisp and beautiful, sunny and windy, but although we would appreciate the weather leading up to the first big frost, we were way too busy to take out much time to enjoy it. Here are the main chores and tasks that I recall we packed into those six or seven weekends:

• Get the behemoth furnace down in the cellar cleaned and serviced


• Be sure that the oil has been delivered and the oil guy will come automatically to refill the 250 gallon tank a couple of times


• Stack the dry firewood, get some green wood delivered to be drying for the next year


• Decide about when to close the pool, traditionally done on Labor Day weekend. If you wait until later you can get in some nice warm Indian Summer swims, but then somebody (me) has to take one last chilly dip to get all the leaves out before putting the cover over the pool


• Decide when to take out window air conditioners, gambling on the weather staying cool


• Put the garden to bed: Plant bulbs, weed, mulch


• Rake the leaves


• Wash the windows one last time or spend the winter wishing you had


• Put the storm windows down and the screens up or off


• Make sure you have a good relationship with the plow guy and have a plowing schedule set up


• Be sure the snow shovels are in good order and available


• Get buckets of sand from the town sand pile to spread on icy walkways


• Visit that great farm in Deerfield to get squash, apples, pumpkins, mums, apple cider


• Make a straw man for the porch or use the summer's scarecrow


• Decorate the porches with pumpkins and mums


• Go to as many local fairs and farmer's markets as you can


• Freeze and can fruits and vegetables


• Grill outside a lot while you can


• Get ready to store deck and patio furniture before the first snow


• Have cars checked out for the winter—change window cleaner for non-freezing kind, put on snow tires


• Put emergency supplies in car: cat litter to shovel under the wheels when you're stuck on ice or in snow, shovel, blanket, flashlight


• Put away summer clothes, get out winter clothes, and hope you didn't do it too soon

The fall rush to get things done was always ended for us by the first hard frost. Then it was time for us arthritic types to hunker down by the fire and enjoy our quiet indoor winter pursuits by lamplight, leaving the skiing and snowshoeing and snowmobiling to the younger and more mobile folks.

Here are a couple of pictures of winter at our house in New Hampshire. The first one is of our VW Bug, buried in a single snowfall a few winters ago.

Here in eastern New Mexico, on the other hand, I'm not really sure what the coming winter will be like. I do know that we will not be in for those six months of winter we endured every year in New Hampshire. I haven't noticed that our neighbors are doing much preparation, other than putting out some porch decorations of fake fall leaves. Personally, the only change I've made so far is to occasionally wear a long-sleeved shirt with my shorts on my early morning bike rides.