Running Water

We always keep a good supply of jugs on hand filled with water.  Every winter we've been in Nondalton we've lost our water supply.  The longest we ever went without water was a month.  The village lost power and after a few days the generators running the pumps quit.  After three days of no water running, our pipes in the yard froze up.  Last week we lost our water totally for three days.  We've got half the pressure back now which is not enough to fill the toilet, but enough to slowly fill the tote we keep in the bathtub to scoop water out of to fill the tank for the toilet, which is much better than driving out on the lake, chipping a hole and hauling water.  Because the apartments are lower than us they have more pressure so we can always go down there to shower.  Most of the problem comes from leaky pipes.  The whole system in the village is past its life expectancy.  We are scheduled to get a new water system road by road over the next three years.  It is difficult to find leaks in the winter because the water can travel for a long ways under the ice making it hard to find the source.  This time there seems to be a problem with the pumps also.  Apparentely they need purging, but they'd have to shut the whole system down for two days and with temperatures -20F in the last week everyone's water might freeze up.  So... we could be low on water for quite awhile.

There is not enough pressure to get hot water to the kitchen so the wood stove comes in handy.
Here the guys are chipping holes in the ice to get water.  Our neighbors are still using the hole because they are up the hill from us and still without any water.

Sarah is helping Anna do the dishes.