One un-insulated pipe...

Oh well.  And here I thought we were getting through this winter season without a problem. Think again, city girl.

This past week's cold freeze brought our temperatures from 74 degrees to 23 degrees, within a 24-hour period.  For all of the cold snaps we've had, we keep faucets dripping and heaters running in both the cottage and the barn. Preventive measures against freezing pipes.  That method worked last year, and it was working fine this year also. Until the other day.

I had gone outside after the propane truck pulled out of the driveway after a routine delivery..... the drivers tend to leave the gate open and I wanted to make sure it was cold so it wouldn't get caught by the wind. As I got near the gate, I heard a waterfall.  Such a nice sound.... except that we don't have a waterfall on our property... and that sound was coming from the barn. Not good.

Back into the house I went to get my boots on, and I headed towards the barn. The closer I got, the louder the sound of falling water. Definitely not good.   As soon as I walked into the barn, there was the waterfall...... coming from one six-foot stretch of PVC pipe that had not been insulated.  The sudden freeze of 23 degrees was probably more than that one pipe could handle, the water inside the pipe must have frozen, and a four-foot piece of that pipe was laying on the floor of the barn in the middle of the waterfall.

I had no idea what to do..... my husband was at work.... so I called our friends up the road.  They drove down the hill within minutes, and J took one look at the pipe, followed it back towards the water pump and simply turned a handle..... and like magic, the waterfall stopped and there was once again silence in the barn. When you know what to do, big problems become little teeny problems.

Nothing was wrong on the second floor of the barn.... I had visions of water-soaked flooring and furniture in the guest rooms up there..... but all the falling water was contained in the lower floor of the barn, which is just wood and dirt and a stretch of concrete.  I waited till my husband got home from work to tell him the news..... no sense in letting him know what happened when he wasn't here to do anything about it.  When I did tell him, he didn't seem concerned..... he said he knew right where that pipe was, and the fix would be an easy one. "It will take me less than an hour to fix that," he said.

Let's see.... where have I heard those words before........ Oh yes, I remember... it's coming back to me now.... Those very words usually prompt me to add a new item to the ever-growing to-do list..... and "an hour's fix" could take weeks to get to.

Since we've lived out here in the country, my vision of God has changed...... my God is dressed in denim from head to toe, wearing a tool belt around his waist that's filled with everything that He could possibly need to fix every big and little item on my to-do list...... and He would stand before me surrounded in bright light with a smile on his face and a golden halo above his head... and in the background, angels would be singing and God would ask me "What would you like me to fix now, my child?"