Rough Night

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Breakfast Diva

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About 10:00 last night, DH comes to me and says someone just hit a deer in the road. The dude kept on driving. It was still alive. S**t. I called my neighbor across the road to help. For the first time in his life, DH had to use his grandfather's rifle that was passed down to him and shot an animal.
That was tough enough, but I then went to wash my hands and there was no water. Now mind you, we've got a full house of people with double jacuzzi bath tubs. Another Oh, S**t moment. There is an emergency shut off if our cistern level get down to a low level and it shut down the system. There is no water coming into the cistern from our spring. Something major is wrong. We now go into panic mode.
DH has to get changed and went up to the spring which is about 1/3 mile up and across the road, up in old growth cedar forest. Beautiful, but definitely not where you want to be at that time of the night. Oh yeah, there's bears and big critters up there too.
I've turned the system back on so our guests can have some water, but I have to monitor it and if it gets too low, I've got to shut it off again. I'm sitting outside, in our little pump house for what seemed forever. It was about 40 minutes before the water started flowing again. DH finally gets back home, soaking wet and says a pipe up there got separated. He had been up there in the dark forest, with a flashlight, following the waterline.
We get to bed around 11:45pm
This morning, I see another neighbor with his skip loader taking the dead deer away to a field. When I say neighbor, it's not like it's just the next door...our nearest neighbors are about 1/4-1/2 mile from us.
It takes a village to own a b&b.
Our guests have no idea that their innkeepers went through all this last night. They're all in their rooms in their robes, finishing up their delivered breakfast, ready to take another bubble bath. All's well with the world.
 
Quite a night, but this is why you get the big bucks ;-)
 
Whew ! Job well done DH.
Thank goodness that is a once in a few years happening.
Now on to a better day. Maybe a bit sneak in short nap this afternoon.
 
I was surprised that your DH was able to shoot it. Good that he had Gramps' rifle and ammo. Here we have to call the authorities - county mounties if out of city limits, cops if in. If you take care of it, you are hunting out of season or some such thing. Coming home from a trip with a dear friend, her son who had picked us up at the train hit a deer was hit by a deer less than a mile from her house. We had to call the county to come finish it off. Her son, who is a hunter, was VERY upset because he could not just take care of it, it was a buck, and hunting season was just 3 weeks away. We had to wait too long for a Deputy who then started to take info from us until my friend suggested he take care of the poor deer first.
Glad to hear the water problem was something he could fix (even though difficult). Good neighbors are gold - guests would probably been spazzed to see a Bambi in the road.
 
I was surprised that your DH was able to shoot it. Good that he had Gramps' rifle and ammo. Here we have to call the authorities - county mounties if out of city limits, cops if in. If you take care of it, you are hunting out of season or some such thing. Coming home from a trip with a dear friend, her son who had picked us up at the train hit a deer was hit by a deer less than a mile from her house. We had to call the county to come finish it off. Her son, who is a hunter, was VERY upset because he could not just take care of it, it was a buck, and hunting season was just 3 weeks away. We had to wait too long for a Deputy who then started to take info from us until my friend suggested he take care of the poor deer first.
Glad to hear the water problem was something he could fix (even though difficult). Good neighbors are gold - guests would probably been spazzed to see a Bambi in the road..
We're pretty much on our own out here. If it hadn't of happened so late at night, I would have called around to see if someone would take it for it's meat. It would make me feel much better if a family were able to use it.
 
That's a whole lot of excitement for one night. We have two water systems and we have been in a similar pinch a time or two. I don't know about you, but these moments have actually taught us to keep our cool, find a solution, get it taken care, and get back on track as soon as possible. I think the first time we lost our water, I could have easily been mistaken for Chicken Little!
Thankfully, NO bears, NO snakes, NO deer, and not too many crazy things in the night. Just a trip out to the pump house in the dark. We do have wild pigs and, unless you get between a sow and cub, they run. We have had to call the county three times for dead pigs on the road in the last few months. They have a trail across the road to our neighbors nut farm.
I love that everyone just went right on with their double jacuzzi breakfast extravaganza. The sign of a great stage manager.
 
Whew ! Job well done DH.
Thank goodness that is a once in a few years happening.
Now on to a better day. Maybe a bit sneak in short nap this afternoon..
Oh I wish, but a nap is just not in the cards today. 2 check-ins and an elopement ceremony this afternoon.
Onward and upward.
 
That's a whole lot of excitement for one night. We have two water systems and we have been in a similar pinch a time or two. I don't know about you, but these moments have actually taught us to keep our cool, find a solution, get it taken care, and get back on track as soon as possible. I think the first time we lost our water, I could have easily been mistaken for Chicken Little!
Thankfully, NO bears, NO snakes, NO deer, and not too many crazy things in the night. Just a trip out to the pump house in the dark. We do have wild pigs and, unless you get between a sow and cub, they run. We have had to call the county three times for dead pigs on the road in the last few months. They have a trail across the road to our neighbors nut farm.
I love that everyone just went right on with their double jacuzzi breakfast extravaganza. The sign of a great stage manager..
Thanks Happy. You're right about in the beginning my 'panic mode' was far more extreme than it is now. After many years and many 'panic modes', you just learn to deal with it better. We've had many water problems over the years and we learn from each one.
 
BD, you and DH deserve a metal. Great job. Glad all turned out well.
We are on a well and after a couple of close calls we purchased a backup pump. Not sure if DH would be able to change it out in the middle of the night but at least we don't have to wait til Monday for assistance if it goes out during the weekend. Knock on wood it doesn't go out at all!
It is a shame about the deer. I know that locally if this happens the authorities have a number to call for someone to come get the deer and the meat goes to feed the less fortunate.
 
why does nothing like this happen at 2pm on a Tuesday? its always in the middle of the night or a sunday evening or a bank holiday
 
BD, you and DH deserve a metal. Great job. Glad all turned out well.
We are on a well and after a couple of close calls we purchased a backup pump. Not sure if DH would be able to change it out in the middle of the night but at least we don't have to wait til Monday for assistance if it goes out during the weekend. Knock on wood it doesn't go out at all!
It is a shame about the deer. I know that locally if this happens the authorities have a number to call for someone to come get the deer and the meat goes to feed the less fortunate..
Yes, always have a backup pump. I think we have a backup to our backup! We also have a pump that injects chlorine into our water. We've had to change that one a couple of times also. Our plumber gave us a submersible pump we can throw in the creek for dire emergencies. The creek water is not drinkable, so it would have to be only for showers and baths.
People think it must be great to have free water. If they only knew what we go through to keep that free water flowing. Thousands of dollars and a bunch of grief.
 
BD, you and DH deserve a metal. Great job. Glad all turned out well.
We are on a well and after a couple of close calls we purchased a backup pump. Not sure if DH would be able to change it out in the middle of the night but at least we don't have to wait til Monday for assistance if it goes out during the weekend. Knock on wood it doesn't go out at all!
It is a shame about the deer. I know that locally if this happens the authorities have a number to call for someone to come get the deer and the meat goes to feed the less fortunate..
Yes, always have a backup pump. I think we have a backup to our backup! We also have a pump that injects chlorine into our water. We've had to change that one a couple of times also. Our plumber gave us a submersible pump we can throw in the creek for dire emergencies. The creek water is not drinkable, so it would have to be only for showers and baths.
People think it must be great to have free water. If they only knew what we go through to keep that free water flowing. Thousands of dollars and a bunch of grief.
.
Breakfast Diva said:
Yes, always have a backup pump. I think we have a backup to our backup! We also have a pump that injects chlorine into our water. We've had to change that one a couple of times also. Our plumber gave us a submersible pump we can throw in the creek for dire emergencies. The creek water is not drinkable, so it would have to be only for showers and baths.
People think it must be great to have free water. If they only knew what we go through to keep that free water flowing. Thousands of dollars and a bunch of grief.
We also have a chlorination unit and this past year caused us lots of issues and finally changed it out.

Yep, free water comes at a big price!
 
why does nothing like this happen at 2pm on a Tuesday? its always in the middle of the night or a sunday evening or a bank holiday.
LOL the smoke detectors often wait until 2 am to let us know it needs a new battery.
 
Glad things turned out as well as they did
heart.gif
 
Oh how I don't miss those crazy emergencies...learned a hell of a lot when we did have them like the time the smoke detectors went off in the middle of the night THREE times and the fire dept came THREE times and we had to move a couple to another place-thank God the next day. It was absolutely crazy.
Sometimes I do miss the wonderful people that come, but right now I am comfortable knowing that I won't be getting up to cook b-fast for a crowd.
God Bless all the Innkeepers of the world-I know I was one of them for 9 years....:)
 
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