Sunday, August 10, 2008

Rain, Rain Don't Go Away

After the very relaxing and re-invigorating adventure with Crazy Johnny last Sunday, we came to the conclusion that relaxation was a necessary and advisable activity. There has been a lot of working going on around here and not much else. Lisa dictated on Saturday morning that there would be minimal hours in front of the computer permitted (OK maybe a few each day) and that the rest of the weekend would be spent doing relaxing activities. Activities like, reading a book (Lisa) and cleaning out the attic crawl space (Mark). We have differing opinions on relaxation I guess.

Yesterday Lisa spent a relaxing few hours sitting on the top step of the pool reading her book... and then this happened.





And it rained and rained and rained. And lighteninged (I know that's not a word but it sounded right). And thundered so loud and for so long that Ow went to hide under the bed.

Believe or not this was all ok. We had been waiting for rain for two reasons.

Not sure if you remember us mentioning it but our last quarterly water bill was $1,300. We were confused by this as we have a giant 20,000 fresh-water reclamation tank under the house that is supposed to take advantage of our fast and frequent downpours by collecting all that luscious fresh rain from our gutters. Well - upon closer examination Mark discovered that our gutters weren't capturing much of anything except falling coconuts. They had been installed incorrectly. A curtain of rain simply poured out between the gutter and the house. Mark had spent a few sweat-soaked days last week fixing (at least he hoped he was fixing) the gutters. All we needed was rain to test it out.... Eureka! You should have seen and heard the gush of water pouring in to that tank from all four inlets. It was like Niagara! There's nothing like free water.



The second reason we were waiting for rain is because when it rains in the Bahamas, the power goes out. Not, may go out, it goes out. Every time. BTC did not let us down so we had a chance to check our non-functioning generator. It didn't come on last time the power went out so we assumed we were out of gas. Well we filled it with gas - but it didn't come on this time either. Come Monday phone calls will be made.

One out of two ain't bad.


12 Days until Emily gets home!!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Lisa!

Yea, I can imagine FREE water would be a good thing! I guess we take it for granted. Even though it's not free here, it's certainly not nearly as costly as what it is for you.

PS - Crazy Johnny looks crazy! I felt very old seeing him swinging from the rafters. He must be at least my age and that means either he's in really good shape, (which makes me look really bad,) or he just spends a good chunk of his time lit up like a torch! A lotta liquid courage maybe!? (Should I be reaching for the Sangria? :)

Mama Smurf said...

$1300 water bill!!!????

LORDY!

On an island surrounded by water.....that just seems wrong! REALLY wrong!

Fliss and Mike Adventures said...

We too have free water where I live on the Barrier Island but when the power goes out... we don't get water... we need the pump to get it... we have been getting alot of the rain storms too but boy... did we need it...