This can't be good

Wednesday, temperatures were in the single digits here. Weather stressed the power grid so much that El Paso Electric requested that major power consumers call off work. Happily, NMSU complied and the hospitals did not.

Our pipe between the wellhead and the house did not survive the first of many rolling blackouts we had that day. A local plumber came up within a couple of hours and said no fix for us until Friday.

The rat bastard plumbers came up yesterday and told us they forgot a tool they needed and the pipes were still frozen but they would be back NEXT Wednesday. Although I suspect we could have gotten them to repair the pipes if we had sweetened their fee, we declined and started calling other plumbers.

But the plumber who came through was Stu! Two trips to town and a couple of hours later, we had water running through the pipes. The sound was sweet! But this also feeds my theory that the rat bastard plumbers just wanted to see how desperate (and willing to pay) we were. If Stu could fix the plumbing in about 90 minutes, surely they could have done the same, in less time, but probably with less care.

Four of the four people we have talked with in Talavera had frozen pipes. Last night I went out to check that the light in the wellhouse was still on (we put it there as a heat source so the well would not again freeze). All the neighbors I could see also had little glowing well houses...

Below is the new plumbing. A thing of beauty. Notice how well insulated it is!

Sent from my T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide

Bridge to Talavera

Stu and I were the third car across the new bridge this morning!

(In Southern New Mexico, you take your excitement where it comes...)

This bridge has been years in coming. When we first moved to Talavera, 3.1 miles of the road from town was dirt. Back then, fewer people were willing to drive to Talavera, and our area grew slowly.

A couple years before the millenium, the road was paved, bringing an explosion of development to our area.

As the area developed, runoff from big desert storms increased flow down the main arroyo that leads into town. The road was not designed to handle the flow, and the road regularly washed out where the arroyo crossed. We watched for years as the county graded, rip-rapped, regraded, repaved, and re-rip-rapped the area, only to have the next storm again wash it all away, leaving exposed utilities and dramatic cut banks by the side of the road.

So no more speculating on the extent of the damage each storm brings as we drive into town. Unless, of course, Mother Nature again figures out how to best the efforts of the humans who keep trying to win... Will let you know!