The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

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Remember when you were eighteen and dumber than a rock but thought you knew it all? Me, I wasn’t about to dedicate my life to being my Dad’s housekeeper, cook and bottle washer, so I showed him. I got married.

We newlyweds lived in a house made of three granaries knocked together, with no water, no bathroom, but, we had more than some. We had electricity. We had a good deep well with delicious water. Coming from a valley farm with soda water, that well water was fine stuff.

In a way, we had running water. I ran it into the house in ten-gallon buckets, one bucket in each hand, every blessed drop of it. I also ran it out in buckets. So, yeah, definitions are important. Running water, indeed.

Yesterday I turned on the spigot to wash mangos to peel and prep for a pie. Oh, first, fresh mango pie of the season from my very own tree. Nary a drop of water dripped from the faucet. Having a wealth of experience, I knew what to do.

I went outside and grabbed a bucket and went to the hose on the south side of the house. No water. Oh, right. Today’s an alternating no-water day from the city. I hiked the bucket to the hose at the north side, just in case. No water.

I phoned Leo, the man on whom we rely to solve all problems. No answer. No answer—no water. Leo does take one day off a week and rightly so.

The tinaco, the tank on the roof, is gravity flow with a float on top, simple and pretty fool-proof. So it will be a simple fix. Probably. The pipe, and filter, might both be plugged with sand and gravel. Or the float is stuck. Probably. What do I know?

Last fall I purchased a huge tinaco to be my stand-by-just-in-case reservoir, since water availability was becoming more chancy year by year. My reserve tank is lodged in a convenient southwest corner of my wall, before the steps up to the back yard.

This being the first time I’ve had to use this tank for water, I had to figure out which spout to turn on and chose the wrong one before I got the right one, of course. Well, it was a fifty-fifty chance.

Hauling buckets of water at eighty is a whole different proposition than hauling buckets of water at eighteen. Instead of ten gallons, I’m using maybe a three-gallon bucket. A bucket of water in one hand, cane in the other hand.

During the day I hauled five buckets of water, enough for dishes and flushing, the bare minimum. I set aside pie baking and other chores requiring water for another day.

Mother Nature, being of an ironic bent, sent down two heavy showers during the day and light rain most of the night. Ah, Mama.

Small problem, easily solved. Sand packed and plugged the filter. Leo came, looked, and flushed the sand out of the filter. The tinaco is full. Water freely flows from the spigots.

Today, I am not doomed back to pioneer beginnings.

Sondra Ashton

Looking out my back door

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