WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE AND YET NO WATER

          The Farmer's Almanac said January would be snow free; hah, I beg to differ.  While these words are appearing on the monitor, the snow is falling quite heavily; I've already cleared out the walkways and the driveway once.  I have to admit, with all the satellites orbiting the globe, the weather is often times quite accurate, but those big, soft, white snow flakes that are casually floating down from the heavens are beginning to add up as they hit the ground, when it wasn't exactly called for.  Oh well, like when I was sailing through the North West Passage, the weather forecasts would often call for no ice and there we'd be, stuck in the ice on some ice-packed forlorn shore where nary a human sole has ever trod.
          It's not that weather is or isn't cooperating with us; for New Brunswick, this is just a typical winter.  But for a bunch of spoiled city-folk like us, we're not used to having the water pipes freeze or the well run dry, which was most likely caused by one of the water lines bursting and then pumping all the water out of the well into the crawl space at the back of the house.  Coming from Vancouver Island, which is basically the Hawaii of Canada, we just have to learn to come to terms with the maritime weather.  It's either hot or cold and when it's not, why hell, the bugs are so big and plentiful, they can pick a person up and dine on him at their leisure down by one of the lakes.
          I'm not sure if it was foolish for us to move out of an environment that we were accustomed to but for the most part, if I wasn't so danged old and achy, I do believe I would thoroughly enjoy myself here at the base of Green Mountain.  Sarah seems to be adapting fairly well but then she isn't much of an outdoors sort of person, so as long as everything is fine inside the house, she quite enjoys it.  The youngest daughter Jessica seems to be coping with the weather conditions but the oldest daughter Rachel is like a fish out of water; if complaints were dollar bills, she'd have enough money to buy her own bank.
          When the water lines froze and the well went dry, our friend who lives at the top of Green Mountain, Clayton Clark and his son Gary came to our rescue.  The fire department didn't want to fill our well and after a lot of major arguing by the sounds of it, Clayton managed to persuade them that it was an emergency and it was the right thing to do.  And if that wasn't enough, let me explain a little about the sort of man Clayton is; he's a man with a heart of gold and willing to help anyone out in a time of need and at 78 years old, after suffering a serious heart attack several months ago, he wriggled into our tight little crawl space that would give a claustrophobic spider a case of the shivering willies and managed to repair the cold water line.  He'd thought he'd soldered the hot water line properly too but you gotta love water, it managed to spray itself out of a hole the size of a skinny whisker.  At the end of about 6 hours struggling with out plumbing problems, as he stood by our wood stove trying to get warm and dry his water-drenched clothes, steam steadily rising up to the ceiling, he said, "I'm feeling a little tired.  But I'll be back to finish the job on Tuesday."  Sunday is his day off and the first cattle auction of the year in a new facility takes place on Monday; hoping to go there myself as I'm considering on going into partners with a young fellow on a couple of beef cows - one to feed our families and the other to help with the costs.  Clayton is definitely a man to be admired and I'm so glad to have him as a friend.
          Seems the wood stove has finally kicked in, just took off my hat and coat - couldn't type wearing a pair of gloves and the snow fall has quit.  Nothing like being warm, because then I get to thinking how good a cold bottle of beer would taste.  And on that note, before I head into the house to grab me a cold bottle of Moosehead Pale Ale, I'll bid anyone that has reached this far reading my ramblings a good day - cheers, eh!