Did I mention I moved from Calgary, Alberta, CANADA . . . land of the frozen tundra . . . to hotter than H:LL, Texas??? You'd think I would know what to do come winter and freezing temperatures and an irrigation system. Obviously not. Part of the reason being it never gets cold enough here long enough to worry about such things. Enter, the big freeze of 2010.
As if the year wasn't already on a roll with exciting adventures beginning, the day before we are about to leave town for a much too quick return trip to the great white North (well, wet and grey actually, in the case of Vancouver), the auto fill quits working on our pool. Not an issue when the weather is mild, as one just places the garden hose in and fills as needed. But when you aren't thinking about such things, you also don't think to disconnect the frozen hose from the wall in the event you may randomly need it. Imagine my face when I suddenly realized the pool is NOT filling after I've turned it on twice, the afternoon prior to our 6am departure, and I have about 4 hours to figure out a plan for getting a massive amount of water in to the pool pronto. This is a problem because given the severe cold temps as of late, the pool has to circulate 24/7 to prevent pipe damage . . . and in order to circulate it needs to maintain a certain level of water to prevent the pump from exploding (read big bucks in above mentioned cases) . . . which wouldn't be a problem if the water wasn't evaporating as quickly as possible because the system isn't set up to accommodate weeks of sub freezing temperatures!
At 3pm, irrigation dude tells me he'll stop by and take a look and I figure it is a no brainer for him to quick fix. An hour later he tells me he'll be by on Monday with the part - the underground part they need to find - not a help in the moment. My neighbor was prepared for pool duty, but she was thinking "Hit the auto fill", not devote an hour a day to filling by garden hose via the kitchen sink. Off to Lowe's and then Home Depot I go, only to spend more than a precious hour hunting down the piece I need. I finally get the frozen hose detached and thawed from outside via a candle torch and hot bath, and get the water flowing just as the pump begins to suck air. My kids have eaten cereal for dinner; I am frozen for all my outdoor trips in my t-shirt thinking my now texan Cdn skin can handle the shock, and I move on to getting kids to bed before the big 6:30 departure/10 hr/2 plane, customs and rental car trip. FUN.
Rather than my usual night before prep, in my exhausted state, I decide to just download and update the iphone/itouch combo to make above mention travel detail survivable with a 6 and 4 year old. I must have seriously gotten brain freeze because for what ever karma make up I was being handed, I ended up sleeping on the play room sofa in intervals of 30 minutes between midnight and 2am getting the download and software situation rectified. A few hours later I was scrambling to do something I had done many times over, making it to the airport with only the charger and snacks left sitting on the kitchen counter. Thus came a Starbucks airport load up and a trip to the store upon arrival to Vancouver, as the trip home was even longer, and without a charger, I was doomed.
So all is well until the next morning, yesterday, when we get the 7am call (9am at home) from neighbor to say the back yard has flooded since her check last night, which means her driveway as well, as I forgot to turn off one of the valves (the one the irrigation geek TOLD me to turn off after he was right there looking at it!) but as I was dealing with my pool drama, allowed it to slip my mind, resulting in a big ol' burst. Ha Ha. The Canadian who knows to blow out her irrigation system in the winter is the on the street with the busted pipe. Nice.
I am grateful that her husband risked his fear of frost bite to stick his hand into the few inches of icy cold water to turn the valve off for me, and then I gave up (from my spot in bed) and tried to get back to sleep, which was NOT happening as my kids were bouncing off the hotel walls by this time.
Despite all the drama, we had a fabulous, albeit short, visit with Grandpa Walt, who is unfortunately very ill, and were up at 3am this morning heading back. We dropped Daddy off at a dinner meeting in down town Dallas, right at the peak of rush hour, and enjoyed the near hour drive home that normally takes about 25 minutes. At least we were able to get the phones charged up, and had a decent enough layover to get the kids well fed and steamed burned off before the second leg of the journey.
On that note, the kids were amazingly well behaved given the travel time they put in, both on their best behavior as they have been told they are still on trial for being "well enough behaved" to take on the sailing adventure. The earned their spot on board with flying colors this weekend, although I'm not about the 'fess up until the last minute. Arrrgh Matey! Oh crap, I've left the hose on and now the pool is overflowing. Are you frickin kidding me! Gotta go!
