November 9, 2005

• Yesterday,
  I drove over to my neighbor Ray’s and got my winter tires put on the
  car.  The pictures accompanying this entry were taken in the
  muskeg across the road from here, as I waited for my car to warm up
  enough to drive it.  The muskeg is frozen, so until the snow gets
  too deep I can walk out onto it.

  Today was water-run day.  Our supply was lower than we usually
  let it go before we refill all the jugs and buckets.  After we
  filled Kermit (the green pot on the woodstove that holds our hot water
  supply), the kitchen pitchers, the coffeemaker, and the cats’ water
  dish, all our water containers were empty.

  I was wishing that I had remembered to take my camera to the
  spring.  Not only was there unusually heavy traffic (counting
  those already there before us and the ones who came as we were filling
  our jugs, half a dozen other vehicles besides ours were at the
  turnout), there was a notable terrain change. 

  
  The spring is coming to the surface about forty feet or so north of the
  outflow pipe.   We can see vapor rising there, but no liquid
  water is visible.  All around the vaporous area, spreading
  downhill toward the waterhole and out toward the edge of the highway,
  is a sheet of ice.  This was a common occurrence years ago, before
  the highway department dug up the spring and put in a new outflow
  pipe.  Now the spring has once again burst out of its
  confinement.  It doesn’t seem to have affected significantly the
  rate of flow from the pipe.
   
  I would suppose that someone with the highway department has made a
  note of this and maybe the spring will be scheduled for new
  “improvements” next summer.  I can’t see them tearing into the
  frozen ground now, and it’s possible they’ll let it go for a few years
  unless someone reports it and asks for the improvements.  From the
  perspective of the people who get water there, it’s a pain in the
  ass. 

  It could literally be a pain in the ass, if someone slips on the
  ice.  The overflow freezes slick over all the surfaces where we
  walk and stand and crouch or kneel to reach the spring.  We
  scattered kitty litter today to aid traction, and I used a folded throw
  rug to kneel on to fill our buckets and jugs.  It’s a lot harder
  now to get the full ones up out of the hole, because the thickness of
  the ice on the platform effectively deepens the waterhole. 
  Breaking up the accumulation of ice would be a temporary fix at best,
  because it will glaze over again, but it will probably have to be done
  anyway to keep it from getting so thick we can’t reach the
  outflow.  Note to self:  next time take the Mutt (ice
  chipper) and a pick and the camera.

  

  • 8:55 pm
  • 10 Comments