This morning I woke up a little before 5. I always look at the pictures from the cameras to see if we had anything interesting during the night. Thankfully, our pictures these days are mostly cats and possums. I couldn’t access the pictures . . no internet. The dogs were still quiet and I knew once I got up, both Oscar and Rita would want to go out and they’d make all kinds of noise as soon as they know I’m up. It’s like they think I’ve forgotten about them and have to be sure that doesn’t happen. Whichever one goes out first, the other is sure they’ve been abandoned forever and they sing a very loud and sad song til I get back inside and switch dogs and take the other one out. About 5:30 I finally got up, took the dogs out, fed them both and sat down to write a blog post. Nope – internet was still out. We can’t even use our phones without wifi. No blog post this morning.
I needed to get Friday’s milk pasteurized but knew I couldn’t make that much noise without waking Vince so I waited til he woke up a little after 7. Then I went up and started working on the milk.
Vince called about the internet and MediaCom had a recording on that a major fiberoptic line had been cut. Vince said “That could mean we’re without internet for a long time.” I wasn’t sure if “a long time” meant all day or a week or an hour but I figured it was off til it was on.
Yesterday Vince had picked up a pickup load of packaged Peat Moss and it was still in the truck so he went out and unloaded that. By the time he came in, the milk was almost ready to be cooled so just as I finished scrubbing the sink and spraying everything down with sanitizer, our water went from full force to a tiny trickle! No! I needed a sink full of cold water to quickly cool down that milk; my jars would need to be washed and sanitized again.
Yesterday evening when we were watering, we were both using hoses, which happens every evening, and we had plenty of water and then after a while, the water slowed way down. It wasn’t a trickle but it wasn’t our usual full pressure. Vince commented on it and then a few hours later, we both took showers at the same time, which has never been a problem but I hardly had any water and was afraid I was actually going to run out of water. This morning all seemed fine til it wasn’t.
Without internet, I couldn’t even get the number for the utilities division of the little town that provides our water. It was 103 outside and with the sun shining on the back deck, it felt even hotter. I could make calls out there but I couldn’t use the internet. I had my neighbor’s number in my phone so I called her and instead of saying “Hello”, she said “So, your water is out too?” Knowing it wasn’t just our water made me feel better. She asked if I had called and I had not because I couldn’t get the number without internet. She said she would call.
Vince said “What are the chances of having the internet and water off at the same time? I told him . . the way things are going, just be thankful the electricity is working.
Vince came in and tried to take a shower but didn’t have enough water so it was basically a sponge bath. I had enough hot water left in the sous vide bath that I was able to use that to wash the jars, then used three gallon jugs of water to put water in the sink. I had two large bottles of ice had frozen so that was good. I did turn the ice maker off in case we ended up with a boil advisory – I didn’t want contaminated ice in the ice bin. As soon as the milk was cold, I poured it back in jars, stuck it in the fridge and we left to go to town.
On the way out of town, we saw the city workers working on the water lines. We stopped and I said “Thanks for working on the water! I’ll thank you a lot more once I have water.” The guy said “We have a “BIG” leak back there” (pointing back towards town). He did say our water should be back on in a few minutes but we were headed back to town. I called the neighbor to see if she had already called about the water and she had not because she couldn’t get the number either without internet. I told her what we had found out from the guys working on the road and we went on to town.
When we got home, we had water and internet! Everything is good . . for now .. except this heat!!
Do I need to say again that I detest summer?? According to Accuweather, today is our last 100+ degree day til August 6. Then we have four days that are over 100 but barely. Then . . well, I’m afraid to look any farther. I think I heard that today was our 16th or 17th day above 100. Still way, way less than they’re having in Texas so I should be thankful for that. I guess I am!
Paula Nordt says
I live between Fairchild, Texas and Needville, Texas. This next week is suppose to be our first week in the 90’s instead of the 100’s for awhile. Looking forward to that!
judy.blog@gmail.com says
I have to laugh at all of us who are excited about 90 degree highs but I know exactly how you feel. Our high today is supposed to be 96 and we still have the heat advisory. I’m thinking . . anything below 100 and we may need jackets after all the heat we’ve had.
Enjoy your cooler weather. Are you getting any rain?
Christina says
Gosh I don’t know how you all cope with that heat, here we had a couple of days and everyone were wilting, the railway tracks buckled , the roads were melting, and fires started in quite a few places. Oh , how I look forward to Autumn and winter. The rowan tree is laden with berries, which usually mean a hard winter, YAY. Judy could you try taking both dogs out together? Or is that a big fat NO? Stay cool and stitch.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Yes, a big fat no! 🙂
Rita is tiny, blind and timid. Oscar is like a bull in a china cabinet, weighs 2-1/2 times what Rita does and he scares her to death. Rita goes out, does her business quickly and wants to come inside. Oscar wants to do a cross country run every time we go out, he wants to chase butterflies and leaves. I think he’s learned that as soon as he’s finished his business, we go back inside so he is in no hurry to do what needs to be done.
Oscar and Rita have very little interaction. She just wants to be left alone and with her being blind, I don’t want to cause her any stress.
Cilla says
Curious as to why you pasteurize the raw milk? Even for yoghurt I bring it up to 180*, then cool it. Otherwise we just drink it raw. My friend uses raw milk to make a cold start yoghurt. I’m so not that brave!!!
Joyce says
I was on a conference call a couple of days ago, and the consultant asked us how we were. We responded “hot”. She said she had spent most of the day at her parent’s house because they had central air. Then she asked us how hot it was where we were. Our “feels like” that day was 123. I think the actual temp was 100 or 102. She laughed and apologized. She said it was 88 where she was, but for them that was horribly hot. We told her we were celebrating the previous week when our high was “only” 88…it’s all a matter of perspective! LOL