This country life...

... ain't all it's cracked up to be.

-- The following is a reprint of my "Country Life.... City Wife" blog:


Honestly, there are times I could just scream at the uncertainties and the ridiculousness of this so-called serene country life.

Thank goodness that I decided to go upstairs when I did yesterday (Wednesday). All hell was breaking loose up there and who would have known that if I had stayed here in the breakfast room with my book instead of deciding to read in the library.

As I walked up the back stairs from the kitchen, I heard the tinkling sound of a small waterfall. We have a few quaint amenities on the second floor of this hundred-year-old house, but a running waterfall isn't one of them. I followed the sound of the water and discovered that water was slowly pouring out of the ceiling fixture in my husband's office. What on this blessed earth?!?

I can always bet the ranch on this particular fact of my world: when this country life throws me a surprise, my husband is at work and blessedly unaware that I am up here in the hills having to make a split-second decision to either call a repairman or call a realtor.

Before I chose either of those options, I called a nearby neighbor who always seems to know what to do in a plumbing or electrical emergency, as well as a wildlife crisis. He and his wife were here within five minutes, and J quickly went up to the third floor to discover there was a problem with the water heaters up in the attic behind the library. He turned off the water valves, turned off the circuit breakers, and made sure that nothing was either sparking or hissing or threatening to fall through the ceiling and land on top of my husband's computer.

First thing this morning, I called the plumbers. Bless this wonderful company... they were here within half an hour, prepared to replace the water heater and also discover why the water didn't drain out of the over-flow pipe and end up in the flowerbed instead of that light fixture in my husband's office.

And here comes the country ridiculousness part of the story:  the water couldn't drain through the overflow pipe because bees had constructed a nest of honeycombs within the pipe protruding from the side of the house.... and their superb construction was so tight and dense that a drop of water couldn't have been released from that pipe if it been shot out of a cannon.

Now honestly.... do you think I could make this stuff up?!  Bees. A bunch of blasted bees.

The plumbers were here all day long. We now have a new and larger water heater in the third floor attic which replaces the two smaller water heaters that were previously there.  This house used to be a Bed & Breakfast, which is why the previous owners decided to have two water heaters up in that attic space. My husband and I don't plan to rent out rooms.... and friends and family stay in the guest cottage which has its own water heater. (And the new water heater is not directly over a light fixture on the second floor.)

Bees. A bunch of blasted bees.

When the plumbers told me they were on their way this morning, I spread old sheets over the carpeting in my library, which is the room they had to go through to get to the attic space. (Thank heaven for those little doors on both sides of that room.)  Out came the old heaters, in went the new one, and the three plumbers were kind enough to walk on the old sheets and not the light beige carpeting.  It wasn't until they went to replace the overflow pipe that goes outside the house that they discovered the complex construction of the bees.

It is 6:30 in the evening as I type... the plumbers left at 5:00 or so. After their truck pulled out of the driveway, I cleaned all the floors and vacuumed the carpeting in the rooms where their booted-feet had been walking back and forth all day long. I put the chairs and tables back in place in my library, and the last thing I did was mop the kitchen floor.

The plumbers had asked me to go into each bathroom and run the hot water after they'd been gone for an hour or so, to make sure that hot water was coming out of all the faucets. Well, I did that. Three of the four bathrooms were just fine. But oh my... that fourth one.... black water came out of the sink... and the commode had black water in it, and when I flushed that down, no water came back up to fill the tank. What in the blessed world?!?

I called the plumbing company.... such a nice woman works there... she has the calmest voice which immediately takes one down from "Oh-my-God-the-sky-is-falling!" to "Quite-possibly-I-need-your-assistance."

She's sending the guys back in the morning.

I can barely wait till my husband gets home tonight so I can tell him everything he misses when he decides not to work from home.