Saving A Newly Born Kid Goat

    This is something that happened in March of 1988.

    Owning any kind of animal is a huge responsibility, because you become god over their lives.  In the 1980’s I owned a growing herd of Angora goats.  Angora goats are shorn, like sheep, and that is where mohair comes from.  I wanted to have some kind of livestock that you didn’t have to kill to benefit from.  

    One Sunday after spending most of the day inside, doing the books of my costs and expenses for my goats in preparation for my income taxes, I decided to step outside for some fresh air.  Once out of the door, I heard the high-pitched wail of a kid goat.  When I went into the barnyard to investigate, I discovered a newly-born kid goat that had dropped from its mother, and had landed right into some wet mud.  It was very weak, and cold.

    I knew that I had to get the kid warm and make sure that it got some of her mother’s milk.         The first milk that comes from the mother contains a substance called Colostrum.  Colostrum is the first thing that the goat's udders produce days after kidding. It is a richer and fattier form of milk and it helps kids through their vital first few days, when they need to gain weight and immunity, so it is very important that a newborn kid gets it.

         I took both the mother and the kid into the barn and got the newborn to suckle a little bit, but her mother began getting irritated , so I left the two of them alone for a while.  Of course when they were left alone, I couldn’t be sure if the kid was able to get milk from her mother or not, so later, I manually milked the mother, and then, using a syringe, I fed the kid by dropping the milk into her mouth, just to make sure that it had gotten milk.

    The baby goat did strengthen, and it and her mother established a normal mother, daughter relationship.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

Our Drive to PG

    Yesterday we drove up to Prince George to stock up on some needed supplies.  It was surprising  how many times the outside temperature changed during the 140 mile (220 km).  The highway does do a lot of ups and downs along the way, but I was still surprised at the range of temperatures and how often they changed during our drive.

    We left McBride at 8:00 AM, where the temperature was a balmy +7°C (44°F), as Highway 16 dipped down through the many river valleys, the temperature dropped to +4°C (39°F).  When we got to Prince George the outside temperature was 12°C (54°F).  Driving home, we got a +2°C (35°F) temperature.  When we arrived back in McBride at 5:00 the temperature was 12°C (54°F).  All of those temperatures are a whole lot warmer than they should be in January.

    When we left home our car was very dirty (there are no places to wash cars in McBride, and also there is a restriction on doing so because of our drought).  When we got to Prince George, we took advantage of a car wash to get the car  back to its original blue color. 

    We couldn’t help but admire how shiny and clean it looked afterwards, looking out of the restaurant window as we ate lunch.  The pleasure we got from our clean car was fleeting however, because the drive back to McBride, restored our car back to the way it looked when we left that morning.

    The photo above shows how the car looked AFTER we got back to McBride.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

There's Something Happening Here

    I took this photo yesterday, January 27th, at Koeneman Park.  Koeneman Park is located just outside of McBride, which is nestled in the Canadian Rockies, in the Interior of British Columbia.  Where is the snow?  This is how things should look in the middle of March, not in January.  There should be at least a foot (30cm) of snow on the ground this time of year.

    I would be happy to get rain, but we don’t get that either.  Precipitation is constantly in the weather forecast, but we just get wind instead.  The temperatures have been extremely warm for this time of year.  Normally the daytime highs should be -4°C (24°F) but we have been getting days of +7°C (44°F).  Night time temperatures are normally -14°C (7°F), but overnight we have been getting +5°C (41°F).

    I am becoming fearful of summer.  We are still in a Class 5 Drought from last year and without our normal snow levels, things will become worse this summer, with the forest fire danger even more extreme.  

    Our end of the Robson Valley is classified as an Interior Temperate Rain Forest.  We are certainly not living up to that classification.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

March, 1988: Spend $2000 Before the End of the Month

    During my time working for the BC Forest Service, it seemed we were always scrambling around to find enough money to do the projects that we needed to do, but during the first part of 1988, I was sent a memo by Management that my mapping department should try to spend $2,000 before the end of March.  It had been determined by our Forest District that we had been allotted more money than we had spent, and if it wasn’t spent, we would lose it.

    Getting a directive to spend more money was something I was not used to, but I started looking around for things that I might need in my mapping work.  I ordered a big supply of the every day things we always used:  more large size paper for maps, toner cartages for our large format printer, an electric eraser to use on mylar and vellum, and a new set of pens and ink for drawing the maps.  The one big  budget, high-tech item I bought was a $700 planimeter, something that would come in handy in my mapping, and didn’t have.

    A planimeter is an instrument that was used by surveyors and other technicians that worked with  maps, to calculate the size of a portion of land.  It was something I often had to do; finding the size of logged areas or of a forest fire.

    For years I had always used a “dot grid” (a sheet of transparent plastic with black uniformly spaced dots) to find the area of things.  By counting the numbers of dots within an area’s perimeter on a map, the acreage or number of hectares, could be found.  Using a dot grid was not very precise, and could be problematic when trying to use it on very large areas, because it was so easy to lose your place while counting so many dots.

A planimeter, allowed me to do the same thing, but it was more accurate, and much quicker on large areas.  After setting the scale of the map on the planimeter, I just had to move the arm of the gadget around the perimeter of the area on a map.  That gave me the acreage or hectarage of whatever area I was working on.   

I could have continued to do all my mapping work without the planimeter, but it did make my work a lot easier, although I did feel a bit guilty about spending $700 on it, and those were 1988 dollars, which were worth a lot more than today’s dollars.

    Today with all of our computer technology and digital maps, something like a dot grid or planimeter seems pretty archaic, but those were the tools that I used in my mapping work in those pre-computer days.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

    

 

Kona: Touch Me, Touch Me

    Kona is, for sure, the most affectionate dog we have ever had.  Our other dogs would tolerate a bit of petting, but they soon tired and made a break.  Kona, however, never tires of being touched, in fact, if I tire and take my hand away, she begins to paw me to indicate she wants it back.  I don’t actually have to pet her, she just wants that hand on her chest, and then she is satisfied.  Her desire for human touch, never seems to be sated.

    Kona also wants that human contact at night.  She sleeps with me and when she does, she always does so with her rear end tight against my back.  If I change positions, she grumbles with irritation, but then adjusts her sleeping position so that her butt will again be touching my back.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca
 

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

    Barbara Kingsolver has taken the rough storyline of Dicken’s David Copperfield, updated it to current times,  and set it in a poverty stricken county in the rural Appalachian Mountains.  I found it immensely enjoyable to see how Kingsolver created similar characters and situations from David Copperfield, to tell an updated story of modern day America, painting for the reader, an often shocking picture of the devastation caused in rural Appalachia by its poverty, the historic exploitation of Big Coal, and by modern Big Pharma, getting rich on its addictive opioid drugs.

Damon Fields, nicknamed Demon Copperhead because of his red hair, like David Copperfield, is born to a widowed woman, but Demon’s mother struggles with drug addition, and much of young Copperhead’s early life is spent caring for his mother and trying to keep things from falling apart.  As in Copperfield, his mother marries a stern, cruel, good for nothing man, who ends up becoming Demon’s guardian after the mother overdoses and dies.

    Demon finds some solace in the kindly Peggot family (similar to the Peggerty family in Dicken’s novel), but like young Copperfield, Demon then ends up living in a series of foster homes, who only want him for his labor, and in this case; the government welfare money that comes with him.  His childhood is cruel and horrific, but he rolls with the punches, and deals with his situation the best he can.

From his status at the very bottom of Appalachian society, in high school Demon’s status soars when he becomes the foster child of the famous local high school football coach, idolized by the whole county for his undefeated football teams.  The coach’s daughter, Angus, becomes the stable companion and friend Demon needs.  The coach’s assistant, nicknamed “U-haul” is the echo of Uriah Heep, the memorable slimy, sycophant, and one of the most memorable of Dicken’s characters in David Copperfield.  

Demon briefly becomes a star of the football team, until in a game he receives a terrible football-ending knee injury, and the Team Doctor, puts him on heavy medication with Oxycontin, the popular opioid painkiller that is starting to addict and decimate the county.  

An addiction to “Oxy” and other opioids, slowly develops as the team doctor continually prescribes the drugs, which Demon depends on to kill the horrible pain in his knee.   Although addicted  Oxy, Demon tries to keep things going, then, like in Copperfield, he falls deeply in love with a childlike young woman named Dora. Dora, who is also an addict, becomes increasingly addicted to opioids, despite Demon’s struggles, to get her and himself to off of the drugs.  Dora, like her namesake in David Copperfield, dies, causing Demon’s struggles to intensify.  

Readers of other Kingsolver novels, may be shocked by the language and situations in Copperhead, because its narrative is written in the language of an orphaned teenager, who has lived a brutal and unsheltered life.  If you haven’t figured it out by now, Kingsolver takes the reader into some really ugly and dark places in rural Appalachian society, so reader beware.  Unlike, David Copperfield, this novel is not for kids, and it deals with some of the terrible contemporary conditions experienced by many people living in rural poverty.

Despite the sometimes very grim sections of the novel, in the end, Demon’s struggles are life affirming.  Written in the first person, through the eyes of Demon Copperhead, the prose is smart, very witty, and insightful.  Since David Copperfield has always been my favorite Dickens’ novel, I really enjoyed the clever way Kingsolver has used it and updated its situations and characters, to fit the world as it now is.

    It was fun to compare the Copperhead with Copperfield.  I have read it twice.  It has become one of my all time favorite novels.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

Shrinkflation Cartoon

    Here is a cartoon that I drew 10 years ago about something that has become even more relevant today.   At least today we have given the practice a name--”Shrinkflation”.   While the practice is probably most noticeable in the foods we buy, it has become prevalent in packaged items throughout the economy.  It seems that now, producers not only shrink the amount of product in the package, but they also actually raise the price.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca
 

It's a Good Thing Kona is Asleep

    Our dog Kona thinks herself a mighty hunter.  Every time she sees, hears, or smells a deer, she loudly explodes into indignation and without thought, runs toward the offender, or its smell.  Kona’s barking and lack of control, drive us crazy.

    Yesterday we looked out of our kitchen window to see this young buck helping himself to the peanut butter we put out for the birds.  (I sometimes wonder what percentage of the peanut butter the birds actually get, after the squirrels and deer bully their way to it.)  Anyway, yesterday we and the stag were lucky, because Kona was already wiped out and snoozing away on the couch, after her morning of intense squirrel watching.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

Looking Forward to Painting a Square of Fog

    I paint.  I generally paint a 2 inch square of my painting every day.  Sometimes the squares are easy, and sometimes they are complicated and difficult.  I zoom in on the square I am going to paint and try to paint the square on my canvas to look like what I am seeing on my computer screen.

    The painting I am currently working on is called “Winter Fog”.  It shows fog laying over the river in the mountain landscape.  Over the last several days the squares I have been painting are of  frosty trees and brush. 

    Lately, every morning when I zoom into the square I am about to paint, I think, “Oh, jeez” because the image is so nebulous, and ill defined, but I bully my way through each day.  I am getting tired of trying to paint these vague and ambiguous squares and look forward to squares that are more distinct and defined . 

    The photo above shows a line of squares I have recently painted.

    I am getting close to leaving the frosty tree squares behind and proceeding to fog squares.  Once there, my squares will be so much simpler, so much easier, and so much quicker to paint.  Below is one of those fog squares that I should get to in a few days.

View my painting so far at: davidmarchant2.ca

 

Our Snow Drought: Trouble Ahead

    I have mentioned several times before that the Village of McBride is suffering in a Category Five Drought (the worst).  While there is now finally about 5 inches (12 cm) of snow on the Valley bottom, (well below what should be on the ground this time of year) that is really not the big concern.  Everyone around here are looking at the snowfall on the mountains, which will provide water for our rivers, creeks, and springs, throughout the summer,  hoping for at least a normal snowfall to help alleviate the drought. Unfortunately, at present, things are looking worse, instead of better.

    On November 16, 2023, I did a blog explaining about BC’s Snow Pillows.  These are pads put up in the alpine that measure the weight of the winter snow, to help predict potential spring flooding.

    Yesterday, I got on the internet to check the snow pillows to see how much snow is on the mountains around us, and things look pretty discouraging.  The graph above shows what is happening at the snow pillow on the mountains closest to McBride.  The pink area shows the recorded historical range of snow.  The green line shows the snow levels last year (which was below the normal), and the black line shows what is happening so far this year, and as you can see, it is well below what has been recorded historically.

    The graph below shows the snow accumulation in the alpine above at Revolution Creek, which is some distance northwest of McBride.  It too is indicating a real snow drought.

    We can’t do anything about the weather, except watch it and hope.  There is a lot of hoping around here that things will take a different tact and a big accumulation of snow will start falling on our local mountains.  

You can view my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca

 

1988: Our First Waterline Freeze-Up

            Losing our water during the winter has happened a few times.  That winter in 1988, the first winter using our gravity-feed line, was also our first freeze-up.  Here is what happened then.

            Our new gravity-feed water system worked well through the first half of the of the winter.  When Glen and I hiked up to our culvert to check how it was doing, the falls looked completely frozen, and a big, thick, dome of ice had formed over our culvert, but underneath all of the ice, Sunbeam Creek was still flowing down the falls and into the culvert.

   However on the 2nd of February, I got a call from Glen, (the first and highest house on our line) who told me that their water pressure had dropped to zero.  Our’s soon followed.  The next day, Glen and I hiked through the snow up to the culvert, and broke through the 8 inches on ice on the dome, pulled up the watergate to lower the water level in the culvert, and cleaned the screen around the intake pipe.  We figured we had solved the problem, but we had not. 

        The pump in our old well house was broken, and so we could no longer use that for our household water.

   Living without the waterline created a lot of immediate problems.  I was able to dip a leaky bucket into the old well to get water for the goats.  After one of our “pick-up” volleyball games at the high school, I used the high school’s locker room to take the “coldest shower of my life….my head got numb and hurt after rinsing the soap off of my hair.”

   Glen and I did another hike, up to the waterline and poured about 10 pounds of salt into the line, in hopes that it would unthaw the frozen part of the waterline that was blocking our water.  Days later we forced a metal cable down the waterline from the culvert to see where it would stop.  We then dug down through the frozen soil at that spot to the pipe and strung up some heat lamps, using several extension cords, strung up from Jeannie’s house at the bottom of the falls.

   The heat lamps were still working the next day and we were able to push the cable in 3 feet further down the line, so we moved the heat lamps further down the line.  Next day we were able to go 8 feet further, but there was always another blockage of ice beyond where ever we were able to melt.

   The following week after our weekly volleyball game, I took another very cold shower and then discovered that I had forgotten to bring a towel.

   A week later, after our friend Tim tried unsuccessfully to fix our water pump, discouraged, I broke down and spent $230 at the hardware store, for a new one.  We couldn’t immediately use the pump, because I had to wait until the following day before I could get a threaded piece of pipe from the hardware stove.

On March 5th, three days after I got our new pump for our well working and finally getting water back in our house, our gravity-feed waterline thawed out and we could once again get back to using that water.

You can take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

Pity This Poor Robin

     Yesterday in McBride, when I walked across the street to the bank, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  There was a Robin, sitting in a tree, just outside the bank.  In the Interior of British Columbia, Robins migrate south in the fall, they are what you look forward to seeing in the Spring.  Clearly, this poor bird got its signals crossed, and instead of migrating south with the rest of his breed, he has been spending his winter in the Robson Valley:  A bad decision, with our Arctic temperature, snow-covered and frozen ground, and not a worm in sight.

    The teller in the bank told me that the Robin has been living off of the crab apples on the tree.  I don’t know that they are going to last him until spring.

    Nature is always taking chances, that is how species spread, but a good many of those chances are dead ends.  I hope this Robin makes it.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Little Help From My Friends

    While you take a look at the pink morning sky we had today, I would just like to express how fortunate I feel because of all the generous friends we have that have offered help us while we are dealing with our water woes.  We have been offered, showers, laundry, and water for our containers.  The offerings have been many and we have to figure out some kind of schedule so we can spread out the services, because we don’t burden any one person too much.

    One of the things I like about living in a village is the sense of community that it provides.  We know the local shop owners and many of the residents of all ages.  Living in such a small isolated place means everyone has had to deal with the same problems, and as a result, everyone really goes out of their way to help others.  

    It’s a good feeling.

You can look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

Saved By A Winter Hat

    Last night at our jam, I took off my winter coat and hat, and when I was getting my guitar out of the case, someone asked, “Wow David, what did you do to your head?”

    I had forgotten all about my banged-up head and told them the story.

    A few evenings ago, during our brutal Arctic temperatures, I took a trip outside to get another load of firewood for the stove.  I had on my felt pack boots, two coats, and the thick padded hat you see in the photo above. 

    I bent down to pick up a piece of firewood that had tumbled from the stack to the ground and after grabbing it, I quickly raised up and really clobbered the top of my head on the 2 x 4, which is part of the low roof that covers my wood pile.

    I was momentarily stunned by the blow to my head, but recovering, I thought, “It was a good thing I was wearing this thick hat, otherwise, that hit would have cut my scalp.”  

    I carried the firewood back into the house and didn’t give the hit another thought until later, when I happened to catch a glimpse of my head in a mirror.  I was shocked that the blow caused so much damage, through my thick winter hat.

    Its a good thing I had that hat on, I can’t imagine how bad the wound would have been without it.

 View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Making a Hole in the Ice

     With our waterline frozen, we have to re-think a lot of our normal household activities.  I don’t mind using our outhouse, but my wife is not all that keen, so yesterday I thought I would try to make a hole in the ice on our pond to get some water that we could use to replenish the back of the toilet after it was flushed.  

    Getting a hole in the ice was a terrible job.  First I used my chainsaw to cut a square in the ice.  That being done, I figured I could just pry the square out, creating a hole.  I tried to pry it out, but the lines I had cut with the chainsaw were too narrow and the chunk of the ice in the middle, too thick, to be pried up. The ice was 11 inches (28 cm) thick.   I then when back to the workshop to get some additional tools.  

    I got a pick and a splitting maul (on the right of the photo)  I used the maul to chip the edges of the hole bigger, so I could pry it.  Every time I swung the maul down on the ice, water splashed upon me.  Soon, my clothes were all wet, and starting to freeze.  The water that had gotten on the handle of the maul, also quickly froze, making it very slippery and difficult to use.   The water in the slots I had made with the chainsaw kept trying to re-freeze.  

    I kept with it, frozen clothes and all.  I ended up using three different pairs of gloves, because they kept getting wet, freezing and sticking too the tools.  Eventually I got the block of ice in the middle of the hole floating free. 

    My plan was to get that ice chunk in the middle out, but that was pretty impossible.  It kept moving when I tried to get a tool under it, and it was just too bulky and heavy for me to lift out.  I was able to finally push it under the ice around the side of the hole, so It was at least, out of the way.

    I got a couple of buckets of water from the hole, but it was a difficult chore to get them all the way up to our house.  

    The hole I had worked so hard to make in the ice, re-froze over night and is now also covered with snow.  It is even difficult to see where I had made it.  I don’t think I will pursue this method of getting water anymore.  It was just too labor intensive, messy, and time consuming.   

     Hopefully with our temperatures now becoming warmer, my wife will soften her opposition to using the outhouse.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

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A Futile Attempt To Get Our Water Back

    On Saturday afternoon, Nick, Glen, and I hiked up to our culvert to try to unthaw our 4,100 ft. waterline which had frozen the night before.  We were pretty sure it had frozen along the rock cliff close to where the culvert is located.  While I had been stuck in town at the hardware store, because my car wouldn’t start (yesterday’s blog) Nick and Glen had gone up to the culvert and broke through the thick ice dome that had formed over the culvert and discovered that there was plenty of water filling the culvert, so our problem was in the line.

    To try and thaw out the line we ran a 20 ft, half inch, poly pipe, down through the 2 inch waterline until we hit an obstruction, which we assumed was the ice.  We heated up salty water in a 5 gallon metal bucket using a tiger torch, then Nick slowly poured the hot water down the poly pipe, in hopes it would melt the frozen blockage, but after 15 gallons of heated water, we could not push the poly pipe any further than when we had started.  

    After several hours up there in the frigid temperature (-25°C, -13°F) and after the third bucket, discouraged and cold, we gave up, and hiked back down the slope to go home.  It is hard to accept that we will probably have to live without water, probably well into April.

    Winter is hard enough living in rural British Columbia as it is, but the additional complication of having no water, is very discouraging.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

 

Keyless Start Has been Disabled

    It was depressing to wake up and remember that our waterline was frozen.  

    The first thing on our agenda, after getting through with all of the morning duties, was to drive into the hardware store to buy two 5 gallon jugs of water.   We did that at 9:00.  Happily, the car started quickly in the -27°C (-17°F) temperatures, and we slowly drove through the crunchy cold to town.

    At the hardware store we filled up the two jugs with water and lugged them back to the car.  Glen our neighbor was also there getting water.  After loading the water into the back of our car, I got in the driver’s seat, pressed the car’s “Start” button, but nothing happened except for the fan, radio, and dashboard lights coming on.  The engine didn’t do anything.

    A message, something like, “Keyless Start has been Disabled” appeared on the dashboard.  I had no idea what that meant, but I continued to try to start the car, and got the same, non-response.

    It was very cold in the car and I didn’t know what to do.  Glen offered to take my wife and Kona back home so they didn’t have to suffer in the cold car, and they left with him.

    I grabbed the car’s “Owner’s Manual” and went back inside the hardware store to see if I could find some pertinent information.  The manual was pretty useless.

    The battery have had some power, because all of the dash board things came on, but I wondered if the battery just didn’t have enough power to turn over the engine.  I called the BCAA (BC Automobile Association) to come and maybe give me a jump start, but due to the extreme cold, getting help was hours away, so I just sat there on a stack of plastic lawn chairs in the hardware store. 

     My feet were very cold, so I ended up buying a pair of some of their thermal socks, which I put on right away, and continued to wait, with warmer feet.  

    A little before 11:00 I got a phone call from the local BCAA garage, who asked me some questions about the car and what was happening.  After I told him, he told we a “jump” would not solve the problem, it was in the keyless part of the car.  I thanked him and told him not to come, but didn’t know what to do.

    I called Glen, to see if he could pick me up, like he had offered, but was told by his wife that he was up at the waterline with Nick, my other neighbor, trying to see what was wrong with our waterline.  Before going to the hardware store, I had made arrangements for all of us to go up there at 10:00 to check things out, and since I was still at the hardware store, they had gone up without me.  Anyway, Glen couldn’t come, so there I sat in the hardware store.

    I began to wonder if changing the battery in my fob, might help.  I had kept a new fob battery in the car, so if it went out sometime, I could change it.

     I couldn’t remember how to open the fob, so got onto youtube on my cell phone, and watched a video to remind me.  As I started to take the fob apart, sitting in the hardware store, I accidentally touched the “Alarm” button on the fob, and the horn on my car, sitting outside, started honking. 

     This seemed to indicate that the fob battery was working alright, but since I had already  started to take the fob apart to change the battery, I continued.  After opening the fob up, several parts of it fell and spread out onto the top of the box that served as my “work bench.” 

    I hoped I would be able to put the parts back together again.  I removed the old battery, and put in the new one, and fortunately was able to put all of the fob pieces back into place, and closed up the fob.

    I then went back out to the car, pressed the Start button, and to my amazement, the engine started.  Why Subaru couldn’t give out the dashboard message that the “Fob Battery is Weak”, instead of “Keyless Start has been Disabled” remains a mystery to me.   At any rate, the car started, and at 12:00, I was able to finally able to drive back home, having wasted a whole morning sitting at the hardware store, instead of helping with the waterline.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca
 

Sudden, No Water: Life Gets More Complicated

    We got an unexpected and unwelcome phone call last night at 11:00.  It was our neighbor Glen (who is referred to as ‘Dr. Doom’ whenever he calls us very late or very early).   Glen got right to the point:  “We have lost our water, do you still have it?”   

    I rushed into the bathroom and turned on the tap.  Initially, some water came out, but it fizzled out quickly. 

    “Damn, damn, damn,” I thought, “This is really bad news.”   

    We couldn’t do much about it at night, and I had a very unrestful sleep.

    We haven’t been up to the culvert yet to see what exactly the problem is.  Has Sunbeam Creek slowed to the point where there isn’t enough water to fill our culvert?   Has frazzle ice blocked our intake?  Has our waterline frozen up somewhere?  I guess we will see later today.  We plan to go up to take a look in an hour and a half.

    The lack of water leaves us with the following problems:

Drinking & Dishwashing-   We can buy jugs of water at the hardware store to take care of that.

Bathroom-    Fortunately, many years ago I did build an outhouse, so although not much fun in this cold                     

    weather, and the outhouse’s frosty interior, it does solve that problem.

Showering-  Hopefully we will be able to shower at the McBride Arena’s “Fit Pit”,  but we might have to     

    get on an exercise machine for a while just to make the shower “legal”.

Washing Clothes-   There used to be a laundromat in McBride, but the rest of that building is closed, so 

    I am not sure if the laundromat part is still open.  I guess we will have to check.

    Once when our waterline froze during the winter, it took well into April for it to thaw out and give us water again.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca