These last days have been some of the most stressful days of our twelve and a half years of marriage. To begin with, I have been on "mare watch"- more fondly called "mare stare". My beloved mare and dressage partner, Pholly, is expecting a foal sometime between late February and mid-March. This means that I no longer sleep in my bed. Instead, I take up residence in the recliner. Sleep involves several forms of alarm clocks to wake me at various intervals depending on Pholly's comfort level. To my right are two monitors giving me a live visual view into the barn. To my left is a baby monitor giving me constant audio feed from the barn. Sleep deprivation becomes the main characteristic of any person taking on "the mare stare". Naps are a necessity.
Add to my own state of sleep deprivation, my husband's own state of exhaustion. Recently diagnosed with hypothyroidism and heart palpitations, Steady-man schedule has been unusually tight between work and doctor's appointments. Throw lots of extra hours at work into the equation and fatigue is the result.
It is into this state of being that life hit hard. I woke up around 4:30, the morning of February 6th [2007], to do a quick roll-over check on Pholly. In my very, sleepy state, I remember thinking, "Gee, I'm cold". Then I blew into the air to see if I could see my breath. The very fact that I thought I might actually see it should have alarmed me. Instead, I snuggled deeper into my blankets and returned to the sleep I desperately wanted.
I was suddenly awakened at 5:30 am, by Steady-man's voice. "Jodie! It's ONLY 49 degrees in here!" Now, did I neglect to mention that our region of the world had just begun the first days of single digit high temperatures for the 2007 year? That's right! We were in the deep freeze and now our furnace wasn't running! All at once, the whole house was up. I told Steady-Man that I was thinking that I was awfully cold. Industrious One and Hair-tied-in-knots were both immediately awake and also cold. Tender-Heart emerged from her bed wrapped in a comforter- also wondering why it was so cold.
We began trying to get the furnace to run. After a few minutes, the furnace did start and we breathed a sigh of relief. Steady-man left for work, promising to check on us in a little while. The temperature rose but not very fast. By noon, the temperature was still only in the 50's and the furnace was running constantly.
The girls and I picked up a load of hay for the horses, unloaded it and stacked it in the barn. When we went to fill water buckets, we discovered the spigot (a freeze-less hydrant) was FROZEN! From frozen water spigot to cold house.
Steady-Man returned home from work and called our heating and furnace company. The technician told him that the house should have heated up by then. An appointment was scheduled for the next afternoon. At 6:00 pm, the furnace shut off and would NOT come back on. Steady-Man called for a technician. We were left with no choice but to have someone come out on an after-hours call. Fortunately, the tech was a very, nice, professional guy. The air flow to the furnace was dirty with spider webs. Apparently, the system is very sensitive. Instead of running on a blue flame, we were running a small, orange, candle flame. The blower fan is a little tight and might need to be replaced but for now, we have heat!
Steady-Man tried to thaw the spigot but believed it to be frozen down in the ground. Therefore, no water to the barn. Our only option was to carry water buckets from the house for our 7 horses, 2 outside dogs and barn cats. Thankfully, my father gave us a 35 gallon water tank several years ago. We could put the tank on the back of the truck, run a hose from the laundry room and then drive water down to the barn. It was a little work but far less back breaking than carrying buckets by hand.
In additon, the manure spreader broke and was parked in the garage for repair. Upon going to use the wheel barrow, we found it had a flat tire. The wheel was removed, fixed and wheel barrow reassembled.
Saturday, Industrious One's friend came over to spend the night. On Sunday, Steady-Man drove her friend home. When he returned, we filled the water tank and I drove the truck down to the barn. While I was backing up, I noticed someone's hair had been closed in the back window and was still there. Rolling the window down didn't free the hair so, I walked around, opened the door and window, removed the hair and closed the door. That's when I noticed the back tire- flat! REALLY FLAT!! Too flat to even risk driving back up to the garage and possible damaging the rim. Steady-Man put the air compressor on a sled and dragged it down to the barn. He filled the tire enough to get the truck up to the garage. Then he went to work changing the tire.
A frustrated man came into the house sometime later. No, the tire hadn't been changed. The switch on his air compressor had broken (remember: FRIGID temps!) and he had to fix that first. Then his heavy-duty, professional grade jack would not work. And now, he could not get two of the five lug nuts off the tire. Not only could he not get the lugs to move, but they were now quite munged up!
Panic began to set in pretty fast now. Both of our parents were out of state. Steady-Man's brother was able to offer some words of advice. Working together, we were able to remove the lugs. A plan was formulated. The spare was put on and Steady-Man went out to buy replacement lugs. You would think in a "Dodge" town, finding replacement lug nuts for our '06 truck would be easy. Not to be! They were not to be found. He bought much needed groceries instead.
The next day, (Monday 2/12/07) Sidekick drove the Neon to work with our Big Horn truck tire in his back seat. On his lunch break, a friend drove him to the tire place to drop off the tire and then to the dealership to buy lug nuts. After work, he picked up the repaired tire (punctured) and returned home. The spare tire was removed and the repaired tire replaced. It took a little extra effort to get the spare tire put back in place under the bed but we eventually discovered our mistake and got the job done.
We drove water down to the barn and gave all of the animals fresh, hot water. A huge snow storm- possible blizzard- was forecasted to move in late that night. After dinner, we settled in to relax and enjoy the evening. Sometime around the middle of the evening, I used the rest room. The toilet plugged up- unusual in itself- and no amount of plunging was working. I soon discovered that all 3 toilets in the house, would not drain. This was the eve of a blizzard too!
This becomes a story in and of itself. After several phone calls, a local company's employee returned our call. Feeling we had no choice based on the amount of snow we were supposed to receive, we asked him to come out that night. It would be an hour or so, but he agreed to come.
The fellow hadn't been here long when Steady-Man came into the kitchen with a worried look. "I don't know that this guy knows what he's doing. He thinks our septic tank is probably full and they don't do pumping. Right now, he's trying to get the lid off the tank". What a desperate feeling! They were predicting 12 to 16 inches of snow for our area which would paralyze this area. We might not be able to get anyone out ot us for several days! The snow was now falling!
In hind sight, this fellow lacked a lot of skill. He could not get the lid open. Steady-Man tried to help him and even provided some of our own tools for his use. At one point, the guy was blow torching the septic lid. This didn't seem too wise considering the contents of the tank below. The fellow even suggested breaking the lid but could not tell us where we would get a replacement. We decided against that option. When asked about snaking the system, the guy was pretty negative about it and said he really thought the problem was a full tank. In the end, he left, having charged us $185- $112 of that for labor. The ticket said he "determined" the tank was full. (Huh?) Our toilets were still backed up! This is a time when you actually wish you did have an outhouse. It was now 2:00 am. It was enough stress to give ME heart palpitations!
At 4:30 am, I woke up to check on Pholly. Steady-Man was also up and when we looked outside, we knew we had to bring at least two more of the horses into the barn. The wind was awful, temps at zero and lots of snow- LOTS!
We worked quickly to prepare stalls and brought the two horses in. MaGee promptly laid down to roll in the fresh stall and immediately became cast! He tried a few times to get up but was not successful. Then he just laid there, as if waiting, wither for a hero or for death.
It took some doing, but Sidekick and I were able to roll him over. Of course, now he was stuck worse! The position he was in now put him with his rump against the short, front wall with his hooves in the air. We rolled him back and Steady-Man pulled his chest away from the wall enough for MaGee to get up. MaGee then shook off the straw and wanted to know where his hay was. Silly Haflinger!!
Early in the morning, Steady-Man called Roto-Rooter. They were still working and would put us on the list. We were number 23 in line. Thirty minutes later, they called back. "This must be your lucky day", the guy on the line said. "Not a single person answered the phone. We'll dispatch someone to you now". THAT is The LORD! Our driveway was getting bad, so I drove the truck up and down it to help open it up some. A field supervisor and a sidekick came. Within 20 minutes, not only had they opened the lid but they had also cleared the CLOG! The charge was $73. God is awesome and so full of grace! [post-script: we were refunded $112 from the first company.]
It was still snowing and the wind chills were expected to be -20 (that's MINUS 20) by the next morning. Steady-Man, Industrious One and I bundled up and went out to drag down round pen panels from the back acreage to the barn. The snow was very deep and the drifted places even deeper. It was slow going and hard work. Using two regular panels plus the gated panel, we rigged a make-shift stall in the aisle, enabling us to bring all of the horses inside.
By Wednesday, we had over 14 inches of blowing, drifting snow. Surrounding areas had 17 inches. Steady-Man missed two days of work. We paid a farmer down the road to come dig and clear out our driveway. Times like these remind us to be thankful every day for even the seemingly small things God takes care of. We still had a frozen spigot but all other issues were resolved.
[
The story should end here, but...]
Wednesday morning, I ate an english muffin with peanut butter on it. By 11:00- 11:30 am, I had intestinal cramps and accompanying symptoms. I didn't feel well at all and feared I was coming down with a stomach virus. Steady-Man and Industrious One kept watch over Pholly and I went to bed. Hair-tied-in-knots had been having stomach aches for a few days also. I advised them to disinfect and be sure to practice good hand-washing.
Thursday, the news reported a recall on Peter Pan Peanut butter with #2111 product coding. There was a problem with salmonella in some! I'd had food poisoning one other time and immediately suspected what caused my problems. Sure enough!! Our jar had the #2111 code! Perfect ending! Thank The LORD! He protected us from serious illness. We eat a LOT of peanut butter [
or did!] and this jar was almost empty. We pray daily for His Protection and are so thankful that He hears our prayers!
(Ten crazy days! It was so crazy, it demanded to be written down. I am thankful for the journal reminder of God's Everlasting Faithfulness to us.)
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