A Waterline Miracle (Sort Of)

    One of my biggest worries throughout the winter is that our waterline might freeze.  There have been a few winters in the past, when our line did freeze, and left us scrambling for other water sources for months.  

    In fact, during the winter of 1994, the waterline froze and didn’t start running again until April 24th.  That is one of the favorite bits of trivia that people remember on the calendar I make annually.

    We get our water from a waterfall.  Our line is 4,100 feet long.  There are four families on the line.  Our house is the third on line.  The water is gathered at Sunbeam Creek Falls, runs down the pipe, to the four houses, then empties out, both at my pond and at our neighbors’s creek.

    One winter, suddenly, we had no water.  Frantic phone calls took place, and Glen, who is has the first house on the waterline, and I, went up to the falls to see what could be done.  After several attempts to get it going, we resigned ourselves to our fate.  

    Glen was able to switch over to his old well, Kjell who lived at the end of the line was able to do the same.  We had an old well also, but our pump no longer worked, so we had to carry water, and take showers at the old Forestry office

    After a week without water, looking for a miracle, I turned on our tap, and discovered in fact, that a miracle had taken place, because water began to dribble out of the faucet.  This was unbelievable.  There wasn’t much pressure, but there was water.  Suddenly, our lives were made a whole lot more pleasant.  I couldn’t explain why there was water, it didn’t make any sense, but it was there and I was happy.  

    We continued on using the water for weeks.  It wasn’t until later that I found out the reason for the flowing water.  It was because of Kjell’s old water system.  He had forgotten to put on a check valve on the waterline to his house, so when he turned on his pump to get water from his well to his house, the poor little pump was not only pumping water to the house, but was also working away pumping water into our waterline.  Eventually, it filled the 2 inch line all the 750 feet back to our house, and we had water coming out of our tap.

    I was always very appreciative of Kjell for this convenience, but alas, the next time he did work on his water system, he closed off this oversight.

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