Living a pioneer life (on the weekends)

So, in the new (old) country house we sometimes face challenges. Like, for instance, the fan suddenly not working on the furnace, leading the furnace to over-heat and turn itself off. This is of particular concern when it happens when it’s minus 8 billion degrees (Celsius, so that’s even colder!) and we happen to be in Toronto, meaning we have no way of knowing the furnace has spontaneously stopped working.

We arrived on Saturday morning to a huge ice cube in the toilet bowl and tank, and of course, no running water of any kind since all the pipes (feed and waste) were frozen solid.

Luckily some of our bottled water managed to make it through without being big blocks of ice (our big container of water, yeah, that was a big solid ice cube…), so I was still able to make us coffee (hell, I have my priorities!) while we waited for the pipes to thaw.

The challenge is that there were no clean coffee mugs (there are very limited coffee mugs to begin with and we didn’t manage to do dishes before we left last weekend because the sink was full of fallen mica - don’t ask - and we were tired and wanted to come back to the city…), and there was limited bottled water, I didn’t want to waste it on cleaning a mug.

So, this is where my pioneer life skills came in handy…

Once I got the coffee ground in the electric grinder, and going in the automatic electric coffee maker (so far very pioneer, yes?) I opened the back door the small crack that the huge mountains of snow would allow me to, and proceeded to wash out my coffee cup with the new fallen snow.

All I could think was ‘oooh, mum would be so proud of my ingenuity!” Of course, really what I’m sure is going through mum’s head as she reads this is “She left the dishes dirty for the whole week they were gone?!?!?”

So, you see, other than the electricity, the television, the cd player, the laptop, the hot plate, the mini convection oven, the bar fridge, the car, the grocery store, and a few other minor details, I’m *just* like a pioneer when I’m out in the country!

P.S. Yes, pipes burst. Of course pipes burst. I wouldn’t have faith in the universe if pipes hadn’t burst. Luckily only hot water pipes, so eventually we had running water, it may have been frigid, but at least we could flush the toilet…