Lost Day

Another day completely wasted. Okay, maybe not completely but almost. Matthew and I woke up a little later than usual this morning. We started to get ready to head over to my mother's to help her pack up her living room. Just as we were about to start washing our faces the power went out - thankfully I keep a couple containers of water for just such occasions. We finished getting ready and left.

My younger brother, his wife and their daughter are moving here on Thursday so we were clearing space and putting down a mattress and stuff for them over at my mother's. We finished that and there was still no power. It went off at 8 a.m. and this was about 10 a.m. so my mother called the power company. Should I be worried that she knows the man there by name? She asked what was going on and when the power would be back. He answered that this was a power outage and it wouldn't be turned back on until 4 p.m.

That's from 8 in the morning!

How can they possibly turn off the power for eight straight hours? It's insane!

So, basically after we finished tidying the house we sat around and twiddled our thumbs for the rest of the day. Oh! Did I mention, it was raining and my older brother was on the road with the truck working so we had no transportation either?

Ahhhh... life in the rainforest.

Cheers :-)
- Rainforest Mommy

Fun and Games

Life has been complete fun out here this weekend. We've been hit with a lot of rain and for some strange reason, almost every time it starts to really pour the power goes off. My mother called the electric company and they gave her some cock and bull story. What this means is the power will go off and come on many times for the day. One day it did it seven times.

She also commented that every time the power comes back on the meter rolls forward a little. The person's suggestion for that was to turn off the central power to the property off and when we see power come back to turn it back on. That might be a solution if we lived in town and could see when the neighbors power came back on but since we live in the jungle, it's not really an option.

The constant on and off with the power is playing havoc with my stuff though. It's gotten to the point where I have almost everything in the house unplugged and only plug it in when I need it. I realize that is a good thing as far as the environment is concerned but it's a pain to have to crawl behind furniture every time I need to use something.

We also spent one day and two nights without water. I can live without power but I have the hardest time functioning without water. Somehow the main water supply got turned off so unknowingly we used all the water in our two vats which left them dry and the pumps running consequently the motor in one of the pumps burned out. $1800 and a new pump later we got water again.

And because the fun just never stops around here, now there appears to be a leak somewhere after the second vat and pump so that pump is constantly running. I'm sure the leak will be found tomorrow but in the meantime the pump has been turned off to keep it from burning out which means even though there is water I don't have access to it. Well, I can call my mother and she can turn the pump on so I can get water but then it's turned off again and all in all it's just been a fun weekend.

Thank God for Monday! :-D

Cheers :-)
- Rainforest Mommy