She Divines Water

It’s been noted before that the hauling of water ranks high up on the list of Most Unpleasant Tasks if You’re a Big Pussy at Cooter Hollow. Higher than de-quilling the dog from her latest adventures in porcupinery, and maybe even higher than Emergency Digging of Poopholes For Small People and Subsequent Poopage Companionship and Assistance (if only because small people seem even more at awe of their excreta when it’s visible, en plein air, freshly expelled and right beneath them). But hauling water has traditionally involved a leaky six gallon plastic container (heavy!), hoisted all the way up strapped to the back, as you know. But that’s not the hardest part.

Once the water reaches our camp, we use it to fill a fifteen gallon tank inside, which is connected to basic plumbing outfits, allowing us such luxuries as a working faucet and hot water heater. These things are worth the effort, but just barely: the tank is filled from the outside, with a thin input hookup that’s about shoulder high. This means that the heavy (whinily heavy) plastic container needs now to be lifted up and gracefully tipped for several minutes until it’s emptied. This means that half of the water ends up on me. This means that I end up soaked, often after dark, very often in freezing weather, and almost always with no fire yet ready to dry me out, because I know if I don’t take care of the water it the second I get home, I’ll settle in or talk myself out of it or otherwise stand up to discover that any energy I’d had has been traded in for a bad mortgage.

To recap: water = a big drag
Water = you’ll die without it. And that’s a bigger drag.

But something remarkably happened just in time for the coming winter. In a change of roles, S was at Cooter Hollow solo and I was out of town, only when I returned, he’d given me one less thing to grunt about. For he, miracle that he is, procured 5-gallon water containers (I know, 5, 6, it’s a digit. But when converted to pounds breaking your back, the difference is magical). Sturdy ones, with big wide-mouth twist off fill caps and smaller, gracious pouring spouts, made of a nice thick polymer that can be dropped, even on one’s own foot, and nice pressure valves and severe-looking prosthetic tan in hue. Which itself is a testament to his character and good taste, but in thinking of his ingenuity, we’d have to look at how he outfitted the cramper for the pouring situation.

First, over the existing spout he affixed a four-inch pvc plumbing fitting, so that we’d have a wider pour. There’s a bottom cap to it as well, in case any sediment or spiders make their way into our water supply. And then (and really, only the sort of gentlemen who shouldn’t even exist in these crass decades would ever think of this), he built me a pour shelf! Right? A pour shelf! So all I have to do is lift the jug to the shelf, line it up, and tip it over. Then I can breakdance on the soft white ground while awaiting full hydronic replenishment. Is that not noteworthy? Yes, it is. Next thing you know I’ll come home after a day’s work to find a sauna and Olympic-sized pool up here.