Tag Archive | clean water

Simple Delights

Jun18

I’m grateful today that Stellar had strength and stamina to walk all the way to the canyon this morning; that he has survived to see the cottonwoods leaf out again; that even though he’s lame and deaf and got cataracts, his sniffer still works great; and that he had such a good day we could take another walk this evening.

I’m grateful for a couple of quick cool showers, the first after I worked all morning in the yarden in brutal heat, and the second at the end of the day; I’m grateful I set up my shower so that the water flows directly out to the base of the birch tree and from there along a row of chokecherry and mountain ash, so I can shower without guilt even during drought; indeed, if I were to curtail showers I’d threaten the health of the ecosystem. I’m grateful for the water itself that flows from the high mountains, for the infrastructure to channel and hold and transport it and for the people through the years who made this possible.

I’m grateful the clouds moved in late afternoon and cooled off the yard and house, even though there was no rain; grateful that tomorrow’s high is forecast to be a temperate 90º instead of today’s 98º in the shade. Grateful also, of course, for nutritious food, including morning glory muffins that Garden Buddy brought the other day, and for cardamom cake that Deb couldn’t eat, for lettuce and peas from the garden, avocados and mushrooms from the store, and for a cheese sandwich at lunch, among other gustatory delights. And I’m grateful for other simple delights as well, such as Doe’s reactions to Biko, who stalked her a bit like he stalks the dog, and made her jump and leap a couple of times, which made me laugh when I recovered from being startled. I just love watching the expressions of the deer as they watch me and my pets move through our mutual yard.

I’m also grateful tonight that I noticed the dog food still cooking on the stove an hour after I meant to turn it off, that I didn’t go to bed with it still cooking, and that remarkably it wasn’t burnt. Through a particular lens, there is always something to be grateful for in any situation: it could always be worse.

Ice

Dec31
Morning has broken…
Today I’m grateful for ice, and all that ice implies.

Grateful for ice, I am grateful for all that ice implies. First, for this kind of ice at least, water, clean tap water, and all that that implies: a reliable water source of snow-capped mountains, a delivery infrastructure, a water treatment plant, more delivery infrastructure, staff to build and maintain all the physical means of delivery and storage, a cistern, the people who dug the trench a quarter mile from the road and buried the pipe, dug the hole and buried the cistern, the plumber who plumbed the house and the several plumbers since who’ve maintained the household water system — deep breath — a freezer in which to make the ice, what a luxury that is, what a luxury all this is, to have clean water delivered to my kitchen sink, to have a kitchen safe and warm, with a refrigerator and freezer.

I’m grateful to be able to reach into the ice bin when I touch the hot skillet and hold an ice cube as it melts until the burn subsides. I’m grateful for ice trays, and how they’ve morphed through the years from those old aluminum trays with the handle that squeaked when you had to pull it up to break the cubes free of the metal grid. Grateful for the twisty plastic kind, and now the fun silicone molds that let you make whatever shape ice you could possibly want, cubes and spheres and sticks of ice.

Grateful for the spherical ice mold Amy sent, even though the frozen globes won’t fit my favorite new drinking glass!
Grateful I have more than one favorite drinking glass!

I’m also grateful for Ol’ Wilson, a new handyman in the neighborhood, who built a contraption to prevent my shower drain from icing shut this winter, and helps shovel snow, who cuts dead trees and stacks firewood, who built a shed for the generator after it’s spent 25 years under a tiny ‘temporary’ roof on a deteriorating rickety stand, and a lean-to in the food garden for hoses and tools. Wilson is cheerful and resourceful with an engineering mind, and grateful for the work, and grateful to live here; he arrives calling out “Another day in Paradise!” and he is absolutely right about that.

Using stuff that was around, Wilson insulated the shower drain outlets at the base of the birch tree, because sometimes ice isn’t what you want.
The generator shed before it was quite finished last month.