Towering tales

It may be March 3rd, but it may also be too soon to talk about our Winter months. Which we REALLY hope is behind us, ha! We kicked off the winter months with a water leak from one of the hydrants on the property. Due to a faulty connection piece (that literally looked melted from sand swirling around it-HOW?!) there was water filling part of the greenhouse and back of the property. That water line supplies water to the tiny house. 😦 Thankfully when Ken extended the waterline to the back of the farm, he put in a shut off valve which allowed us to shut off water to the back part of the property. And of course all of this is happening while its raining buckets already, so the holes are filling up with rain water AND hydrant water leaking…making it super challenging to pump water out to find the leak. God bless Ken and his handyman/unpaid farm intern ways! What followed the next few days was lots of digging, repairs and learning to live with very little water to no running water at times. Ava became our teapot runner every morning! She would walk out to the front of the property to fill the teapot from the hydrant that had water running to it and bring it back. We joked with her that some day she’ll be able to tell her kids she walked “up hill, both ways, in cold weather” just to get fresh water. She didn’t get it! I’ll admit, Ken and I were the crankiest when it came to adjusting to a lack of water. My in-laws bathroom and the Fife Pool (where I lap swim) became our showers for a few days while Ken repaired the line. Those few days taught us how to be the most resourceful yet…and made us incredibly thankful for running water. 🙂

December also taught us another valuable lesson on one freezing morning. Our propane tanks don’t work when the outside temperature is below 30 degrees. Joy. (And we’ve had several of those this Winter!) Once we realized that, we knew we had limited time to figure out what our work around would be. Again, Ken and his wise ways, said, “we need tracer wire.” (Don’t ask me what that is or how it works – no clue.) He went to work on figuring out how to keep the tanks warm enough to have enough pressure to push through to something that makes our little, tiny, water tank produce hot water. This day followed very closely to getting the first water leak fixed. Yes. I said first. (There were/are more, but we can’t even go there yet. lol!) Needless to say I was like a grumpy old lady when the girls got up for school. What followed was such a valuable reminder for me… When the girls got up, I let them know that there was no hot water. They yelled, “no water again!” And I said, “No, we have water, just not hot water.” To which they responded with, “Oh! As long as we have water, we’re fine! We can get ready with cold water.” I was surprised by their ease of it all…they just moved about their morning getting ready without a complaint. They could find good without missing a beat. And as we moved through the long, cold days, we developed a routine of thawing frozen lines (with a hairdryer), keeping propane tanks going and visiting in-laws on the weekends. 😉

The dark, cold days of Winter may have had its challenges, but we also had some sweet moments as well! We celebrated Christmas with a few small gifts and our deck Christmas Tree, Stella! Kylee named it “Stella” because that means “star” in Latin. We all agreed she was the star of our deck!! She had a hard time staying vertical from time to time (which meant a few broken bulbs) BUT its March and she’s still on our deck! The upside to being outside in the cold vs inside I guess! Until recently it was so dark that it literally served as “light” out there for us. Plus, it made us smile. A bonfire is probably coming soon for her though…

The days are starting to get longer – which is making all of us excited for the return of deck days and farm walks!

Enjoy some of our Winter pics…there’s been one round of hide and seek in the Tiny House…can you guess which picture that is?! lol! Next post will be a family addition filled with the highs and lows marking 1 year of tiny living!