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blizzard warnings - 13:52 , 03 October 2013

heelerless - 21:32 , 18 August 2013

Red Coat Inn in Fort McLeod - 11:38 , 23 June 2013

rushing into the waters - 09:53 , 21 June 2013

choosing a spot - 17:43 , 27 April 2013

16 December 2003 - 16:26

toilet monster

Eldest son just came downstairs a little while ago, accompanied by two terrified heelers.

It seems there was a monster in the toilet. Hissing like crazy, and spitting water out on the floor.

No, not out of the bowl. From the back tank. Son reached back and closed the water valve, which silenced the monster (elevating his standing in the heelers' eyes, I'm sure), and then came down to report to me.

Our little town is in the process of replacing our water system, street by street. Closing down the treatment plant that has served us for decades, in exchange for a connection to the water system for the larger town to the west. It's going to save our town money in the short term, but there are a lot of drawbacks to the decision.

First is, we'll have to be metered. Yeah, up to this year, there has been no regulation on water use, and no means of actually determining who was using how much. Everybody paid a flat monthly fee, and used all the water they wanted.

A rarity for a western community, but that's how life is when you have some of the oldest water rights on the river. Left over, quite literally, from the days of cowboys and Indians. Or more accurately, the days of cavalry and Indians.

So, in exchange for tapping into another city's water system, they will meter our homes, and charge us for what we use. Certainly a wise measure for conservation, but it's going to make it hard to keep our lawns green, and the trees alive. And we'll lose our outside tap on the curbing, unless we want to pay for a second meter, and have a second water bill every month. The worst part of the deal is, in 50 years' time, the big city will get a share of our ancient water rights, something they desperately need, and we should have bargained harder to keep.

Anyway, today was our day to have our blocks added to the new system. With probably two to three times the water pressure we have ever had before.

Hence the camping jugs full of water for drinking and cleaning, and the bath tub full of water with a bucket nearby for flushing the toilet.

And hence the gas, heavy on chlorine, erupting through the toilet tank and scaring the heelers half to bejeesus. They got panicky and one bumped my shoulder when I bent down to reopen the valve, letting the hiss come through again.

"Nooooo! Don't open that! He just got that monster out of here!"

Must have been like in the movies, when you keep telling the hapless victims, "Noooo! Don't open the door!"

And then, finally, the gas was replaced with water.

Guess we're hooked up, now. Eldest son was going to save a bottle of our town's own water (the city's has a reputation for not being the cleanest, and occasionally sending freshwater shrimp down through the pipes... dead of course, from the flourine and chlorine), so I hope he's got it already.

And yeah, the new water is slightly brown. We'll hope that's a symptom of the construction work outside our house, and not typical of the water we'll be getting from now on.

Think we'll keep our camping jugs of Town Water for a while, yet. Even stale plastic taste may be better than this other stuff.

And for the record, the countdown is down to just over seven hours before we're all visiting Middle Earth again.

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