Neighbors

    Glen is the voice of doom.  Whenever I get a phone call from Glen, it is usually bad news.  It usually means that something is going wrong with our water system.  We get our water right from the middle of a waterfall.  It collects in a culvert then the weight of the water gives us pressure in our homes.  There are four of us on the system, and because Glen is in the first house and it is located a bit higher than the rest of us he notices the drop in pressure first.

    Wednesday night, I got a call from Glen, when I heard his voice, my heart sunk, but he immediately assured me, “Don’t worry Dave, the water is alright.” so I breathed sigh of relief.

    He then talked about how well the system has been working lately and how we hadn’t any problems for quite a long spell.  Then he told me that he was going away on Thursday, and he just wanted to warn me, that he wouldn’t be around in case something did happen to the water (Glen and I are usually the two people who have to deal with water problems.

    Joan was in Jasper yesterday, and I was home alone, and turned on the tap in the kitchen to get a drink of water and to my dismay noticed that there was hardly any water coming out,  the pressure was really low.  

    “Great,” I thought, “The minute Glen is away the problems start..

    Joan doesn’t like for me to go up to our water intake on the falls because it is so dangerous (slippery rocks, and a long way down into the canyon), so I needed someone to go along with me just for safety, if I went up to fix the water.

    I knew Glen was gone, and Bruce, the other neighbor who sometimes helps, was also away.  The 4th neighbor was alone with her kids, so she couldn’t help.  It was a problem.  Then I thought of Dave, who lives down the road by the creek.  He isn’t on our system, but he is a good guy and might lend me a hand.

    I gave him a call, and he agreed to go along with me, without hesitation.  We climbed up the slope, I saw that our culvert was half full of sandy particles, and all I had to do was to raise the watergate, and the sand flushed out.  I closed the watergate and our waterline began to fill once again.

    It is so nice to have generous neighbors who are always eager to lend a hand.  Thanks Dave.

    The photo is of the jungly forest along our trail and has nothing to do with the blog.

You can see my paintings at: www.davidmarchant.ca