I know my next-door neighbours a little better, and I've learned a little bit about plumbing, too, thanks to good old Mother Nature.
You might not be able to tell this from what's been going on around here since Christmas, but 2014 was is actually the warmest year in the history of humanity. Apparently. What a cruel trick of nature, that the very place with such tough winters is getting the worst part of global climate change. I kindof had been hoping we'd become the next Florida as Florida was swallowed by the sea, but oh, no, we have to get the polar vortexes instead of the warm jet stream.
But back to the neighbours, whose water pipes froze up somewhere underground in the middle of the night on Tuesday. There's really no way to thaw them, and so, they came to us to ask if they might be able to twin their water to our water.
Of course they can.
When the water utility sent me a note to confirm it was OK, I asked if anyone ever says no. Apparently, they're hearing a lot of nasty neighbour horror stories at the water utility these days.
My sweetie spent most of the night Wednesday trying to get the neighbours hooked up to our water, but we didn't have the right fitting for the hose, and things were freezing up even as we hooked them up.
Yesterday, a friend of the neighbours spent the afternoon thawing things out and hooking up a hose, which gave the neighbours two solid hours of water before it, too froze solid.
We spent last evening re-thawing the faucets and switching out the hose, which ran for another two hours before it, yup, froze up. Again.
So, one of our taps is running non-stop, our laundry room is scattered with three very long lengths of thawing hoses, and my poor neighbours still can't get the water to flow.
If this is what we can expect from climate change, send me my electric car and wind turbine right now.
