Reflections - Crazy Spring

Spring on Creek Road

Spring came on dusty feet.

“You won’t need a jacket.” Spence bent to fasten the Velcro straps on his boots for our mid afternoon health walk April 15. “But bring a mask.”

A mask? Wearing a mask while exercising makes me pant after striding a mere ten yards. Nevertheless, I fetched my sunglasses, left my jacket, and slipped an N95 mask over my wrist. The mask wouldn’t make me pant there.

Our feet crunched gravel along dry West Creek Road. Following the flight of the first cabbage white butterfly of the season with my eyes, I narrowly missed stepping on a flattened baby snake curved in a treble clef shape—too smashed to know which type.

An engine revved and a cloud of dust appeared over the next rise.

“Put on your mask.” Whipping a black N95 out of his pocket, Spence covered his mouth and nose.

I hustled to attach a white mask to my face.

Out of the cloud raced a full-size pickup. It zoomed past us, raising dust twice as high as the black truck that would be dusty gray before it got to the hard road.

“Must be a stranger,” Spence muttered.

We paced side by side through the cloud. I breathed the pocket of fresh air my mask provided—no panting, just leisurely enjoying our walk. I batted my eyelids several times, though, before the dust finally settled. Spence slipped his mask into his pocket. I slid mine comfortably over my left ear and concentrated on flowers.

Spring beauties and coltsfoot dominated the roadsides. Trout lilies, violets, and cut-leaved toothwort bloomed too. The flowers attracted the first bumblebee. The hum of an engine joined the bumblebee’s buzz.

We prepared.

Faced with masked pedestrians, the driver of a blue sedan, presumably a local, slowed to a crawl. We exchanged waves. Dust rose to the car’s trunk height.

We still needed the masks.

Woodpeckers hammered trees and peepers sang joyous songs in the wetlands at the bottom of the hill near low-running Deer Creek.

Spence poked me in the ribs with his elbow and pointed to the tree branches sporting teensy-tiny leaves. “I expected larger leaves by now.”

“Probably the trees didn’t get enough rain.” I pursed my lips remembering the blueberry crop I’d lost last spring because of the drought when the berries needed to ripen.

This April lacked showers. Weather forecasters disseminated wildfire warnings for our area. Summer road dust rose months early. Call it climate change, climate craziness, or climate confusion.

Confused is how a pair of robins looked a few mornings later. They hopped in the lush spring-green grass outside the bedroom window in welcome rain. With plump, shiny red breasts and their yellow eyes alert, they hunted for early worms. The robin closest to me cocked its head listening only to get pelted by an ice drop. As the rain changed to an icy barrage, both birds stood marble-statue still. No worms or bugs ventured out into nature's wild swing of temperatures that morning. The robins had my sympathies, but they were healthy. They could adapt and face more extremes than snow after high seventy degree temperatures.

And the robins didn’t have long to chill. In two days, the afternoon temperature soared to the low eighties. Despite a starry night sky and our low valley homestead giving us a brisk Friday, April 21 morning, I couldn’t resist the sunshine pouring onto the deck. I bundled: crochet headband, thick fleece sweatshirt, velour yoga pants, yoga gloves, and gripper socks. Lugging my gear from the loft to the deck two months earlier than normal, I spread my mat beside multi-colored pansies, a red azalea, and a dogwood waiting for transplanting.

 

Pansy 3

With Adriene coaching over the iPad at the top of the mat, I inhaled the fresh morning air and stretched for the sky. Ande stretched as high as his paws could reach on the other side of the glass door beside me. We lowered to the ground in forward bends together—me exhaling with a swoosh, Ande landing in his food bowl and scattering cat crunchies over the tile floor.

Three morbid owlet moths clung to the adjacent glass door. Dew drops on their folded wings sparkled in the sunshine. How long would they stay motionless as the sun and heat rose? Adriene kept me moving from plank pose to downward facing dog. A fourth morbid owlet moth wibble-wobbled across the computer’s mini keyboard and onto my mat.

Had the unusual April heat confused the moths? A deck wasn't the best place for them to linger, especially since Spence continued to put out sunflower seeds each morning, and the scolding chickadees, with the downy woodpecker that joined their feeding group, would swoop in as soon as I left.

Planning to do yoga outside again the next morning, I stuffed the yoga gear under the bedroom desk and headed for breakfast. Afterwards, I checked on the moths. Gone—hopefully without the downy's help.

The following day dawned rainy and with an air temperature in the low forties. Disappointed, I lugged my yoga gear back to the loft and chided myself for thinking I could stretch regularly outside in such a crazy spring.

This past week, clouds and rain brought a more recognizable April—not considering the wild winds associated with the month of March. While I washed breakfast dishes, a sleek pair of robins hop-skippity-hopped between closed dandelion flowers in the wet grass. They cocked their heads and pulled up one wriggling earthworm after another.

Wearing boots and jackets, Spence and I squished muddy West Creek Road for our health walk. Rain pattered our umbrellas. Scent of earthworms floated in the air. No need to slip on an N95 mask when the lone vehicle swished past.

Spring finished April wearing its rubbers. What spring does in May I don’t want to wager.

Spring on West Creek Road

 

 Reflections - Trickle Threat

Candlelight and Paper Plates

 

 

April first, the weather at Wells Wood turned nasty. Sitting at the secretary desk in the bedroom, I joined a ZOOM meeting for my Pennwriters group. Doris read her essay about driving home the previous Saturday with toppled trees in yards and wind whipping debris across Meadville roads.

While she read, the wind at Wells Wood howled through treetops. Trees bent in agonized angles. The sky blackened. Rain pelted the window beside my desk. Lights blinked. The on-screen images of writers faded.

“Spence, are you connected to the internet?”

“Yeah,” he called from the great room. “Oh, no. It’s off.” He came and leaned over my shoulder. “Leave the meeting and join again.”

I did. It worked—for a minute. Lights and internet went out and stayed out.

Spence patted my back. “Let’s plug in the solar panels.”

He had to be kidding. “The sky is black.” I pointed out the front window. “We won’t get any power.”

“It’s blue in the south.”

Looking over my shoulder through the side bedroom window, I spotted patches of blue between the racing black clouds. Maybe I could rejoin the meeting by solar power. I hustled outside and threw the switch disconnecting the panels from the grid. Electricity could flow into the house, but our panels would no longer send power out. We didn’t want to electrocute any workers repairing the system.

Armed with lights—his phone and my three-inch purse flashlight—we eased down the spiral stairs, being careful not to trip on Ande. Perched on a step halfway down, the cat watched Spence unsnarl two extra long utility extension cords while I held the flashlights aloft.

Reading directions for switching to in-house power, we connected the cords—the first to the freezer which stayed silent, not a good sign. The second Spence looped up the spiral stairs to a power strip. He repeated his unsnarling trick with the modem. “So many wires!” Last, he plugged the plant light, which took very little electricity, into the power strip. The light stayed dark. Clouds had covered the patch of blue.

Getting back to the meeting didn't matter. We could use the wood stove for cooking and heat. Solar panels could eventually run the freezer and refrigerator, charge our phones and laptops, as well as power the internet when it came back in service. But we couldn’t pump any more water into the house from the well without the utility company’s electricity. We would have to conserve water if power didn’t return by dinnertime.

It didn’t.

After a wood stove cooked dinner, Spence moseyed to the sofa for a nap. Our son Charlie shuffled down the hall and plopped onto his bed. I stacked the dishes to harmonious snores. I could postpone washing them until we got power back—surely by morning. In the meantime, the reserves in our tanks needed to be used for cooking, hand washing, teeth brushing, and drinking. Lighting eight-inch red candles, I propped my elbows on the kitchen table and read Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng.

Power didn’t return Sunday morning. I decided to put dishes off again.

Spence had other ideas. “You have to wash the dishes. If you don’t, I will.”

In past blackouts, our water supply for essentials lasted twenty-four hours. We had a twenty-gallon incoming well tank and an eighty-two-gallon pressurized water tank for filtered water. Once we drained those, water trickled, air spit, then nothing came out of the tap. Maybe the fifty-gallon hot water tank we added with the geothermal system would make a difference.

“I’ll wash the dishes.” 

He tucked his chin and looked down his nose. “I don’t mind.”

“No, I’ll do it. I’d rather you haul the cistern water for the toilets.” With the valves shut off so water couldn’t flow from the house supply into the toilets, we needed cistern water to flush. Spence enjoyed riding his Mahindra tractor. He could haul the heavy buckets.

While the tractor motor grumbled outside, I grabbed the cast iron dutch oven for washing and a large stainless steel stock pot for rinsing. Filling each half full, I admired the flow coming from the sink tap. We had enough water to last at least until Monday morning. The power would probably be restored by then. Nevertheless, I stopped myself from reaching for the tap to rinse—most of the time—and set the paper plates on the table.

Mid afternoon, I wished for a magical resolution to the electric and internet outages. “Spence, will you drive to cell phone range and tell PennPower and Windstream we still aren't connected?”

“They know. The outage is widespread.”

“Last time you called, we got service right away.” Why did he have to be a realist?

“That was a coincidence.” Nevertheless, he reached for his keys, pet his buddy Rills, and left. In the distance the old Colorado pickup, which he’d parked under the spruce trees, rumbled away. (The electric garage door didn’t work, of course, and the hand release cord had broken trapping his new Maverick in the garage.) He returned with a dismal report: “PennPower’s robot said, ‘There is a widespread outage. We’re working as fast as we can.’ Windstream said, ‘There is a widespread outage. Thanks for being patient.’”

Usually they state the number of hours or at least the day to expect service.

After yet another wood stove cooked dinner, I washed dishes by the two-pan method, and Spence checked water pressure in the basement. “It’s down to twenty psi.” Twenty pounds per square inch?  Way too low.

 

Pine Trees Casting Shadows on Solar Panels

We faced a trickle threat.

Not fair.

Two weeks earlier we had solved the problem of the long winter of dribbling showers and trickling faucets. I’d scrubbed the ceramic candle filters in snowmelt water and replaced the muddy sediment filter in our water system. I relaxed in the hot, luxurious, full-spray showers that our geothermal furnace provided once again. Now, we didn’t take showers. And Tuesday afternoon, I would need to strip from the waist up for an echocardiogram. I needed a shower. Sponge baths aren’t efficient at cleaning stinky armpits.

I flipped the hot water tap on and off quickly to dampen my toothbrush. Squeezing a dab of toothpaste, I scrubbed my teeth, spit forcefully, and turned the tap to rinse. The water flowed in a steady stream at room temperature. The extra geothermal tank had given us extra days of water, but how many? Falling asleep Sunday night, I chanted, “You will wake to electric lights.”

Instead, the wood stove clanking in the dark woke me. Voices drifted in from the great room. I switched on my reading lamp—no electricity. My phone read 5:00 a.m. Spence must be making Charlie breakfast before he drove to work. I went back to sleep.

Hours later, the internet, which Spence had plugged into the solar panel fed power strip, popped on. Spence and I spent a quiet morning, side by side on the sofa, tapping keys on our laptops. “It's a date,” he said, always the romantic.

The day wore on. We filled the enameled-steel, gallon kettle with tap water—still flowing full stream—boiled it on the wood stove, and filtered the water for drinking. 

Spence drove to the Meadville library for a ZOOM meeting that evening. Before the solar panels stopped producing energy, I checked the power outage status of First Energy, PennPower’s parent company, online. It listed 3, 273 customers still without power in Mercer County. Drat.

At 5:15, the plant table light flickered. The refrigerator motor ground on and off, on and off and . . . and the sun moved behind the old pine stand. The trees’ shadows on the solar panels cut power off. I warmed leftover chicken burgers and peas on the wood stove then did dishes using the hot water tap to draw from the geothermal tank. Water still flowed smoothly. Our conservation methods worked. We could probably manage a blackout twice as long. I couldn’t wait much longer for a shower though. Grrrr. “You’ve got twelve hours to get your wires together,” I shouted to PennPower.

Ande cocked his head. Normally I don’t raise my voice over kitchen chores.

“It’s okay, Ande. I’ll just use lots of soap on my washcloth when I clean up for the medical appointment.”

Seeming reassured, he lay on his side with legs extended forward and back.

More reassuring, the great room track lights gleamed in luminous splendor at precisely 6:56. I hooted, scooped Ande’s elongated furry form into my arms, and danced around the kitchen table.

He squirmed and leapt. Licking each shoulder in sequence, he pranced to the cat fountain, which bubbled and gurgled again.

Our fifty-three and a half hour trickle threat had ended. The new geothermal hot water tank had strengthened our independence from the electric power company. And before Tuesday’s appointment, I would bask in a full-stream shower.

Geothermal Hot Water Tank

 Reflections - Trickle Troubles

Showerhead

Showering became races to avoid trickle torture. I longed for the luxurious gush which the geothermal hot water gave in the winter of 2022. I would wash and rinse my hair, soap and rinse my body, then linger under the soothing spray as if getting a treatment at a health spa. The force gradually diminished. This winter, with Spence, our son, and me performing morning ablutions and toilet flushings, showers sprayed modestly at first. I rushed to get my hair washed and my body soaped before performing an awkward ballet under the showerhead to catch the last drops for a final rinse. 

We had trickle troubles.

“What happened to the water pressure?” Spence shouted to no one in particular one morning at the beginning of March. Frustrated, he rubbed the towel briskly over himself.

Leaning against the door jam, I explained the gradual drop in water pressure. “I wonder if a pipe froze underground between the water pump by the old cabin site and the new log house.”

“Maybe something in the furnace is blocking water going to the hot water tank.” Spence scrunched his lips, wiggling his mustache. “Could be a blockage in our water filters. I’ll check with Jerry.” He emailed Jerry Kennihan, who designed our geothermal system.

“Sounds like you need to clean the filters,” Jerry wrote back.

Spence traipsed downstairs, banged around causing six cat ears to stand at attention upstairs, and returned with a report. “The air filter wasn’t bad. The screen behind was.” He made the outline of a cat with his hands. “It had enough hair to make another cat.” 

Cleaning the air filters gave us minor relief—for a day.

Spence emailed Jerry.

“It’s good you cleaned the air filters, but that wouldn’t affect the water pressure,” Jerry wrote, continuing their troubleshooting discussion. “Check the pressure where the water enters the house. It should be eighty pounds.” 

Spence monitored the incoming water pressure. We had forty to fifty pounds per square inch whether or not the geothermal furnace was running—lower than ideal, average for us.

“Clean the water filters where the water enters the house,” Jerry wrote next.

Oops.

Spence Unscrewing Ceramic Candle Canister

We’d installed Doulton water filters August 2, 2012. Once or twice a year I replaced the sediment filter in one blue canister and scrubbed the ceramic candles in the other two. This guaranteed our water at 99.99% purity. Because we live downhill from cow pastures and a gas well, we boil drinking water then refilter it to be extra safe.

Last spring, medical appointments distracted us. Spence was waiting for a referral to a surgeon concerning his hernia. I busied myself with pre-op preparations at Magee Women’s Hospital in Erie. In the fall we had surgeries and our recoveries took priority. Cleaning water filters never occurred to me. If it had, the task wouldn’t have been possible—too strenuous for our temporary restrictions. 

We’d recovered and could have managed the job. We just had to shut the indoor water off while I cleaned the filters outside at the cistern hydrant.

But it snowed. 

We lived with the trickle until sunny March 20 when the air temperature reached the mid 40s. Welcoming the sunshine, Spence dashed out to repair Mr. Hooper, the hoop house. Winter winds had broken the connections in the PVC frame making the plastic roof sag.

I bundled—boots, jeans, two turtlenecks, a sweatshirt, a fleece jacket, and the knit tam mom made me. No gloves. Lugging rags, scour pads, two empty buckets, a replacement sediment filter, and replacement candles, I crossed the soggy grass, setting my load halfway between the hydrant and Mr. Hooper. I yelled to Spence. “Would you unscrew the canisters for me?”

Back in the basement, he loosened the canisters with the plastic wrench then his hands. We walked as if on a tightrope carrying each canister to avoid spilling the water or breaking the ceramic candles. They are hollow, about ten inches long, one inch in diameter, and very fragile.

I started with the easiest—the polyester sediment filter, which turns earth brown with use. Normally, gripping and pulling removes it. This year the slimy, mud-covered filter slipped through my fingers. Twice. I upended the canister and, thud-splat, dumped it. 

Canister by the Cistern Hydrant

Windblown maple leaves lined with snowflakes lay in the shade of the old pine stand by the hydrant. Instead of splashing, like I do on balmy spring or fall days, I filled the canister with a couple inches of water and toted it into the sunshine. My fingertips touched the wet rag and snowmelt water as little as possible, to wipe off the mud. 

Spence passed by when I’d removed all the mud and installed a new white filter. “Need any help?”

I handed the blue canister to him. “This one’s ready to install.”

Easing the first ceramic filter set out, I twisted a candle to free it from the holder. The candle didn’t budge. I twisted again. Crack. The top broke off leaving a jagged stub. Gritting my teeth but reassuring myself that’s why I brought the replacements, I unscrewed the others and placed them in an empty bucket. I covered the sharp edges with the scour pad and muscled the stub out. 

A chickadee sang hey sweetie and I dipped the first candle into water in the canister to scrub the treated clay, darkened by harmful chemicals and impurities it magically caught from water passing through. Rinsing the candle in the cold cistern water, I rushed back to the sunshine for more scrubbing. Shish-shish. Clay splattered boots, jeans, and jacket. My fingers numbed. One by one, chestnut brown candles turned creamy white.

Shivering, I scrubbed the second set. Spence and I repeated the tightrope-walking to take the ceramic filter canisters inside. I watched him screw them in place while rubbing my tingling, throbbing fingers.

We had clean water filters. Did we solve the water flow problem?

The following day Spence took the first shower. “The water gushed. We’ll see if it lasts.”

I showered second. Water pounded me. 

The real test came Friday, laundry day. Following morning ablutions and toilet flushings for three, I lingered in the shower, luxurious again. I washed breakfast dishes, scrubbed the cat fountain, and refilled it. Dreading a trickle after the morning’s draining of the water tank, I turned the utility tub tap for pre-soaking Spence’s garden jeans and the socks he scuffs around the house in like dust mops. Water spouted with fire hose force. I didn’t have to wait until mid afternoon for my first laundry load.

The clean filters flushed away trickle trouble for now. I learned my lesson. My google calendar for September 20 reads: Clean water filters on a sunny 70° day.

Candles Ready to Clean and Replacement Candle Ready to Insert