Domestic Tranquility

The flowers along the ramp need watering several times each day in this period of such dry, hot weather. Each morning and evening we are out positioning the sprinklers for the flower gardens. The vegetables are on a watering timer and get a drink morning and evening. We were away for three days earlier in the week and lost several plants to the heat and drought.

After a lovely family weekend with Quincy and his Mom we spent today dealing with the two major problems on our scope: the internet and the water, both critical to our life here in the Green Swamp.

We spent hours and hours and lots of emotional energy redoing our internet access. A lovely technician, Al, showed up this morning. (I had steeled myself to the fact that these folks never show up when promised without multiple bleating calls.) But this one did, and like Santa, went right to his work, ripped out the old receiver, a dinosaur, he said. He made sure everything was on line and perfect. I was so glad to see him I scurried around fetching glasses of ice water and was my most perky affirmative self. While he worked, we weeded and pruned in the exhausting heat that is now upon us.

My spouse has a wonderful way of being a perpetual presence when people come to fix things and install things. So, eventually, it was all done, and now we have lightning speed internet on all computers in the vicinity. So we went to our computers to deal with the hundreds of messages, mostly drek, to delete.

Later, just as dinner was fifteen minutes away and I was just out of the pool and washing my hair under the shower out there, the pump and water guy arrived. So I hastily grabbed a towel, shampoo plastered to my head, and sped into the house to finish my ablutions on the back porch where the shower curtain is green grape vines.

Our water from a deep well is afflicted with organic iron. This clogs everything from toilets to washing machines, makes the water stink, and everything in our lives is tinged with yellowish orange. We have been in a period of changing the technology of our water system and this has been a slow process. We have spent too much time studying the water in the toilets and wondering if it is safe to drink the water out of the taps.

The pump and water guy spent a couple of hours adding a new bunch of filters to an already expensive system. We hope it will work. After supper we spent some more quality/quantity time examining the water in the toilets. Instead of being orange, the water is now a gray blue. Keep on flushing!

But all this is worth it. Tomorrow we will be able to brush our teeth in clear water, and maybe pee in toilets that aren't alarming. We will be able to access the internet and our world apart from this magical place we love so much. Maybe some day we'll actually have cell phone reliability from here.

The chimney swifts who live in the chimney above the fireplace in the office have hatched their chicks, and every fifteen minutes when the parents appear with many tasty regurgitated bugs, there is a loud cacaphony. Domestic tranquility indeed.