Today the weather took a decided turn in the direction of winter along the Front Range. The weather forecasters have been predicting this storm front for about a week and they got it right.
Yesterday I continued preparing the yard and garden for the weather and about 5PM, I turned on the water on the outside hose so I could make sure the water soaked through the new mulch I put down. To my surprise, the plastic handle to the spigot came apart in my hand, resulting in the water coming out through the hose. When I kinked the hose to try and put a cap on it, the water started spraying out from the wall where the spigot remains were. I turned off the water to the house, but that wasn’t satisfactory.
As you can imagine, plumbing companies weren’t returning my calls on a Sunday night with the storm barreling in. I called a handy-man friend who has been expanding his capabilities and trying to start his own business. He changed his plans and came over and, with a little bit of help from me (mostly being on the outside of the house while he worked on cutting the replacement pipe to fit and getting it attached inside the house). The storm front moved in and I was outside in the freezing rain and snow pellets, pushing on the pipe while warming myself on the heat from the floodlight and the heat from the pipe (he was heating to get the water out of the pipe). He was able to get it attached, no leaks and he’ll be back in a couple of days to firmly attach the pipe to the bricks on the house. Two hours, no trip charge, and saving us so we could get the water back on last night instead of some day in the future.
This friend and his wife surprised me last fall when they showed up with a Trump bumpersticker on their car. They’ve been totally brainwashed that everything about the Obama and Clinton administrations were the worst things for the country possible and Trump is doing the kind of upending of Washington that’s so necessary. When I went with him last night to Home Depot to get the proper piping, he and the assistant exchanged a couple comments about the players not standing for the anthem and I asked him in the parking lot if he agreed with Pence’s stunt. He said it wasn’t like Michelle Obama and Joe Biden hadn’t done the same kind of wasteful trips, so I knew he wasn’t going to be reasoned with. I agreed to drop it because this friend was doing me an incredible favor. Not everyone who’s a Trumpist is a selfish bigot, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be reasoned with.
I just wish I could do him an incredible favor by pulling him back from the dark side.
Here is what I woke up to:
That smoker on the left was used to make beef jerky today and will be smoking some salmon tomorrow or Wednesday.Did you folks get snowed upon? Do you still have flowers and plants in your gardens you’re trying to preserve for another couple weeks? Do you have other issues you want to address (I just got a phone call from the Democratic Speaker of the House advertising a town hall to discuss Colorado’s population growth on the evening of October 10th).