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"When the wells dry, we know the worth of water" - Ben Franklin
I was thinking along the lines of Ben Franklin this morning as I stood shivering in the shower with shampoo in one eye and no water flowing out of my shower head. For those of you who have what us country folk call "city water", count your blessings every night that you don't ever have to worry about water flowing through your pipes and please say a little water prayer for your country friends. We need it.
Like most people out in the country we get our water from a well. We live most days without any water issues, but we know in the back of our minds at all times that water is a precious commodity that must be nurtured and praised and constantly worried about in order to coax it from the ground and into our showers.
We worry about things like power outages. We run to fill the bathtubs with water at the first threat of foul weather so we will be able to flush the toilets.
We teach our 6 year old sons to reach in the crawl space under the house to whack the water pressure regulator valve when it gets stuck.
We worry during droughts that today will be the last drop. We evil eye our neighbors when they water their garden in a drought and steal our underground water. (not really....well, maybe...but you can't prove anything)
Sometimes, like where Jason grew up, folks drive to a local community spring to fill large water tanks when the water dries up every summer.
We coax and prod and lay hands on to pray over our well pumps so they last another day. We wrap them in electric blankets so they don't catch a chill in the winter.
With all this, it's no wonder we build shrines to our wells like this one:
Come to think of it, our well is looking kind of shabby and neglected, no wonder our water kharma has been off lately. Please don't forget us in your prayers tonight. Thank you.
p.s. you should see a great improvement in my photo quality...I got a new HD digital camera today. Sweet!
We live life on the edge. On the edge of sanity, yes. On the edge of our seats, yes. But mostly what I mean is that we live in the country, right outside the edge of the suburbs of Raleigh, NC. We have a 36 acre farm, and we can't see another house from our front porch. I love the country life, but by some standards we may not be as "country" as others (we have 3 grocery stores within a 6-7 mile radius) and by others standards may seem impossibly "country" (we have to drive 6-7 miles to the grocery store).
I have decided to create this blog to share our country life on the edge. I have a wonderful husband Jason (aka my #1 Water Toter...will explain that later) and 2 children Casey 5 (aka Sissy) and J.W. 6 (aka Bubs). I currently have a full time job at a large Pharmaceutical company and I'm a stay at home mom (thanks to being blessed with a wonderful manager who allows me to work from home 3 days a week and grandparents who watch the kids 2 days a week) and I manage a horse farm with monthly horse shows. I epitomize the saying "I'm so busy I don't know if I found a rope or lost my horse".
In this blog I will comment about things I have a lot of experience with (like canning, home cooking and horses), experience with but still learning (like gardening) and also things I've always wanted to try (like cheese making, soap making). People are always asking me how I do some of the things I do, like canning or just plain cooking so I thought I would chronicle some of them here.
I will share the adventures of raising kids on a farm.
I am also in the middle of a home renovation that actually started last year when I could no longer tolerate the carpet (does not work on a farm with kids) and bright yellow walls that were part of our house when we moved here in 2004. I will post before and after pictures as I transform our farmhouse into what I call Country and Western design....a little bit of country and a little bit western.
Hope you enjoy!
