Coop's Corner: Restless Night, Abrupt Morning

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Restless Night, Abrupt Morning

My employer is doing a major renovation to our Machine Shop; walls torn down, floor space expanded with reinforced floors for some new, heavier machines. A midst the resulting chaos, many pieces of equipment are in very temporary locations (with even more temporary hook-ups). One of those pieces of equipment is a water blaster that we use for cleaning parts.

Since the usual access to water has been removed, we've hooked up a temporary water access to an outside faucet, complete with garden hose. Recent daytime temps left us complacent about properly leaving our setup ready for the overnight dip back to freezing temps and it dipped to the mid-20's. Added to that were other complications that made simply pulling everything inside difficult.

As a result, I worried about it all night, concerned that at the very least, the hose would be frozen solid (split?) for today's necessary parts cleaning. Worse than that was my concern about a frozen spigot and possible breakage. So all of that made for poorer sleeping than was necessary.

Mrs. Coop gets up weekday mornings before I do; her Morning Procedures a great deal more extensive than mine. Even with my slowed down simple preparations, I have to drag my feet to avoid leaving each morning without my commuting partner.

I almost always hear the shower running, allowing me a graceful lift from my slumber.......

"Coop, there's no water......" was how we started out this morning. I struggled to focus on who's water issues I was planning contingencies for all night. Up and on with the grubbies, checking breakers, listening and watching for a leak anywhere.

By the time I got to the front door with my coat on, I had two ideas, one of them far more probable than the other. I checked the easy one first, relieved and frustrated to find that the problem lie elsewhere. With flashlight in hand, it was out in the paddock where the horses no longer play to our fountain waterer. Sure enough, even before I got there, the sound of cascading water was evident.

In the 100 yards to the basement to turn everything off, then back out to the paddock for a closer inspection (since I was up so early, I had time for inspections). I've been inside the unit enough times to grab the correct couple of tools to give me access. Once the water was no longer flowing, it looked pretty obvious and at least was encouraging that the problem was up and out of the ground rather than down, deep below.

I HAD to go to work today to deal with my 'real' water problem and asked Peg if she was willing or able to go along or if she wanted to stay home and let me head up on my own. She hadn't brought her laptop home. We both jumped in the car and headed to the city, luckily for our indoor felines, their water bowl had been filled last night.

I will admit that I did not shower this morning. I won't confirm or deny whether Mrs. Coop did. She was a little grumpy on the commute this morning though.

Can you find the problem?

Mrs. Coop is bathing in luxury as I Post this.......

12 comments:

UnknownMarch 28, 2013 at 8:34 PM
Coop:

shucks, only a hairline crack. a few wraps of duct tape should do it

Glad you got it all repaired.

I am glad to find a machinist. I need something made but don't know how to describe what I want. I need a swiveling camera mount

bob
Riding the Wet Coast

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AnonymousMarch 28, 2013 at 8:51 PM
hose clamps... super glue... Ta DA :o)
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VStar LadyMarch 28, 2013 at 9:22 PM
I hate the sound of running water where I know it shouldn't be ... lucky for me... (I was in NYC when the bath plumbing sprung a leak)... again, lucky for me, my son has become quite handy with plumbing and had things repaired before I got home. I could not have survived as a pioneer - my world comes to a halt without running water. (Bob is my kind of repair man - duct tape!)
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mark tomlinsonMarch 28, 2013 at 9:42 PM
That is not the first gate valve I have seen split. I hope it is not the last, but I doubt that.
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Martha March 29, 2013 at 8:31 AM
I can feel the cold and the effort. Reminds me of losing power for days in the winter. Ugh. I hope you have a nice sleepy weekend.
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TrobairitzMarch 29, 2013 at 11:30 AM
Damn that is a rude awakening. Not what you wanted to wake up to.

At least it wasn't worse. No pipes broke in the house.

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"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

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The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)