Water Problems

All winter Jim has been very proactive about how much snow there is up against the house.  He takes the tractor and removes the accumulation, dumping it on the lower area of the parking lot.  Ten days ago we had a huge dump of snow.  There are about 2 to 3 feet of snow lying on the flat areas of the yard.  Here and there are deeper drifts, but right by the house he has removed most of it.

However, we didn't think about all the snow that had landed on our roof.  The house has a peak at one corner, slopes down to the middle, and the rest is basically flat, with just enough slope to drain down to one area by the back door.  This is a picture of the roof just above the back door.

About 5:30 p.m. yesterday we noticed water seeping into the basement where the pipe from well enters and got out our shop vacs.  When we had cleared up the major portion of the puddle, we set up the shop vac to keep sucking.  What a racket it makes!  We closed the basement door and went upstairs to have our supper.

Fortunately for us, when the temperature fell below freezing the water stopped running.  We turned off the vacuum and went to bed.

This morning Jim decided he needed to shovel all the snow off the

roof to prevent more water from following the same course.

Just about the time I left to play for the morning service, he climbed up on the roof and began to shovel snow into the tractor bucket.  When the bucket was full, he dumped the snow at the low end of our property, near the road, when it won't run into the house when it melts.

We had a good service, and such an interesting thing happened during the feature for the children.  The children all gathered at the front and our pastor's wife talked with them about eggs.  She asked, why do you think eggs are used to talk about Easter?  One eager 6 year old piped up, "Oh, I know! Because they have three parts, just like God!" Right on!  Then she talked about how a hen sits on her eggs and after a little while, new chicks hatch from the eggs.  "Oh!" he said, "Just like we are newborn children of God!"  By this time we were all chuckling, and thoroughly enjoying his responses.  He had everyone beat!

Then she took the egg, had an older child hold it in his hand, and she pressed hard on it.  Of course, it broke!  But!!!It was empty.  Ezra (actually the name of the 6 year old) said, "JUST LIKE THE EMPTY TOMB!!!"

Well, who even needs a sermon when a little child can lead us?

Meanwhile back at the ranch,  Jim was shovelling, and shovelling, and shovelling.

When I got home at 1 p.m. he had made a lot of progress, but still had a long way to go.  I offered to help shovel, but was turned down.  I saw a lot of water surrounding the downspout by the back door.  It was running off the patio and draining into the soil on the east side of the house, the same side where it was running into the basement.  So I got out the smaller shop vac and started vacuuming up the little lake of water.  More water appeared as soon as I vacuumed what was already there.  About every minute I had to empty the vac, which holds 4 gallons.  By 2:30 it was taking a little longer to fill the vac.  Now it's running and I can go out and empty it about every 4 minutes, so the flow is way, way down.  Naturally, because there's not so much snow on the roof any more.

Now it's 3:45 and Jim is still out there shovelling!  And he's 75 years old!  He'll need a good soak in a hot bath, a long, gentle massage and a good meal to help him recover from this unusual Easter Sunday!