There have been many things that have been keeping me away from blog land for the last couple of weeks. In addition to building and trying to get woolies and other goodies ready for fall, I’ve also had a uncomfortable, teething toddler. We started our official school year (The first week went wonderfully. I started a post about our first day, I just haven’t managed to finish it yet. Our second week was more of a struggle, due in no small part to some of the issues I’ll address later in this post! I’m hoping to get back on track with a really strong third week). There have been multiple health issues to deal with (why, oh why, do my children always seem to be sporting some sort of strange rash??), a day trip, and on-going discussions (arguments?) with both the phone and electric companies, as well as our insurance company. Yeah, we’ve been keeping busy. And then there was the rain…

It finally came. And what a relief after the drought and all of our struggles with the well. A huge relief… that is, until our house started leaking. And keep leaking, pouring cold water in over the top of the window frame, and behind the furniture, splashing everything in site.

This seems to be a reoccurring theme for us. Water never seems to be where we need it to be, but rather precisely where we need it not to be. I used to comment (somewhat bitterly) on the irony that if we could squeeze the walls in our old house, we’d probably have enough water to fill the well.

We spent two stormy days trying to keep everything dry, trying to determine where the leak is coming from, trying to stop the baby from drinking out of the cups collecting water on the sill, and changing him from the umpteenth time, when he toppled one of them onto himself, yet again. B the Builder came by and tried to reroute the flow in hopes of slowing things down.

It seems that when we pulled off the shakes and the band to attach the addition, we ceased to be water tight. It will no longer be a problem once we got a roof on, but until then…. And so, day two found us tearing apart the wall, pulling back foil and ripping out soggy insulation. Ah, but first we had to take down all of the shelves on that wall the comprise the storage system for well, pretty much all of our worldly possessions. Dandy.

And so, our living space currently looks like this. And yes folks, that is almost our entire living area. Upstairs we have a slightly smaller room full of beds.

We can not currently use our table. It’s buried under stuff. I decided against building a fire this morning, to take the chill off our now uninsulated home, because I was unable to find a place to put the stuff on the wood stove. And I am currently writing to you from my laptop…balanced on a pile of books. The insulation is suspended from the rafters for now, in an attempt to dry it out. We are trying ever so hard to keep baby out of this space before every. thing. gets. destroyed.

At the end of the second nerve-wreaking day of trying to save our possessions and our home, I finally got to the point were I just needed to walk away. The well had still been touch and go at the beginning of the rains, but seemed to be in pretty good shape now. I bundled up my little love-bug and said “screw it. we’re going to go take a nice relaxing bath”. During which we ran out of water. I have to say, I came darn close to kicking the full dehumidifier on my way to turn off the pump!