Episode 4

Notes From the North IF Episode 4

We have learned that there are no Seven Elevens in the entire State of Idaho. It took almost a week for that fact to settle in our awareness. The people here seem quite proud of that fact, for no reason they have been able to put into words. They still have similar stores - Maverick, etc., but no 7/11s.

The City of Ammon has sprung into action, 10 days after we informed them of the leak, and after digging out an area almost as large as some Egyptian tombs, they replaced the line from the main to our shut off valve. They put a meter on the line and determined that water is still escaping, somewhere, at the rate of 1 gallon every 10 seconds (60,480 gallons per week) and it has to be leaking out into our yard. I had the city call our property manager and let them know.

“You want me to call them?” asked the same charming man from the city as I handed him the number for the property management company.

“I think they will take it more seriously coming from you” I explained.

So it was not so unreasonable to think we were flooding the neighborhood, and it explains the incontinent luxuriance of our lawn.

Mr. Dxxxxx came out yesterday with a replacement washing machine. He removed the one we had, wrestled the replacement into position, and then discovered that it did not work at all - the agitator did not agitate, the cycles did not cycle. Mr. Dxxxxx maintained an almost supernatural aplomb as he phoned his technicians to let them know that the replacement machine was even less functional than the first washer. He actually had to leave a dryer at our house while he muscled both washers onto his trailer and zoomed away to get us a 3rd machine. This proved the old saying that "third times a charm" as the latest washer functions perfectly, and by diligent action on our part we have finally eliminated the "laundry mountain" that has accumulated since we moved in.

It was an astonishingly beautiful day today – warm and sunny with magnificent cloudscape – distant wispy clouds kindled pink before they caught the burnt orange and subtle gold of sunrise for only a heartbreaking moment – then they turned gray and finally silvery white later in the day. Mountainous billowy masses crested the hills we can see from our backyard, bloated masses puffing and crashing past one another as they tumble down the sides of the rocky crests. In the afternoon darkish clouds capped with brilliant white poured along the east passing south on their way who knows where.

In place of the disjointed ramblings of homeless collecting bottles in the alley we listen to the disparate choruses of many kinds of birds. It's harvest season here and birds abound, quail and pheasant and many kinds of birds I do not recognize. Two nights ago I stood on our deck at 2:30 am and listened to coyotes calling to one another. Two blocks from our house is wide open country – high desert sweeping to the hills. As I listened their calls got closer; they were talking to each other with a surprisingly varied vocabulary of sounds. I left for the warmth of bed wondering what they were hunting.

That's all for this time, stay tuned from Notes From the North!