Homestead Day 63 Thursday 11/23/2017 Today was another beautiful day in paradise.

I didn’t realize it was Thanksgiving until this evening. Spent the entire day working on the house and the water supply. So I hope all of you had a very Happy and Tasty Thanksgiving.

There are so many things that need done and the damned water quit again. I am truly losing my mind over this water situation. Every day seems to bring a new water problem. I promised myself, as I was crawling under the floor last evening, that come January I would run electric under the house with one switch to turn on all of the heaters. Also, that come spring I would put a water barrier around the house and put gravel right up to the top of the barrier. I’ll live with this aggravation one season, but I’ll be dipped if I will ever do it twice. We have a small creek that crosses the property. Next spring I am going to have a springbox built. We plan to use this to water plants in the proposed greenhouse but a friend of mine suggested that we get the proper filters and use it for the homestead’s water supply. Of course, this will require constant testing of the water but will be substantially less expensive than buying $200+ worth of water every month.

Today’s disaster was that the heat tape for the outlet valve of the tank failed and the outlet froze. Fortunately, the frozen water expanded back into the tank and did not burst the valve or the line. Small blessings are taken willingly and with deep gratitude. This problem was solved by placing a 75 watt light bulb in close proximity to the outlet. After about an hour we had water yet again.

UPS delivered a package yesterday afternoon. It contained 200 feet of heat tape. This tape is mostly used for keeping snow and ice from destroying the gutters of the well-to-do. Summer and I wrapped all 200 feet around the bottom of our water tank. We’ve had an iceberg in the tank for several weeks. The iceberg is limiting our available water supply. After three warmups, because you can’t do the wrapping with gloved hands, we got the heat tape installed. We warmed up again and then installed the insulation on the tank. BTW the outside temp with no wind was about 14 degrees. Once the insulation was installed and all of the electric connected and turned on the water wasn’t running AGAIN. It had frozen while we were trying to get the tank wrapped and heated. Water and electricity don’t mix very well so we had the power off while we were working. With the restored power I was hoping that it would thaw soon and about two hours later it did. We still have a sink full of dirty dishes. Maybe we’ll get up in the morning and the water will flow.

The downstairs commode is still not working. I checked it and there is no water coming through the valve. Either the valve is clogged or the line is frozen. Since we noticed that the tank was slow to fill, I’m betting on a defective or clogged valve. That is a project for tomorrow.

Summer went to her friends house for moose something as we are having a potluck Thanksgiving dinner at their house on Saturday. They killed one of their turkeys for this upcoming repast. This means I’ll have to take part of Saturday off to take my weekly bath and make myself as presentable as possible. I haven’t had a haircut in over three months, maybe near four, which makes presentable difficult. I AM NOT paying someone $25 for an $8 haircut. I have a full head of hair but it is really thin. Any competent barber could cut it in 6-8 minutes. I’m not paying $3-$4 a minute to sit in a barbers chair. I’ll just wait until I’m in Florida for Christmas to get a haircut. Summer volunteered to cut it but I’m afraid that the result would look worse than it already does.

Dinner tonight has, so far, consisted of Vodka-seven and Vienna Fingers. I may fix something later but since we’ve moved to Alaska I’ve not been very motivated to eat. After my wife, Connie, passed I have not been motivated by much of anything or to do anything. I thank God for this house, with all of it’s aggravations, as it has given me a reason to live.