...and sometimes material presents itself.

I included the 1940 International Harvester
tractor in this picture because, well, do you
have to ask??

How many of you were waiting for the blog post about the day the well pump broke? I mean, we live on a freaking farm--at some point there has got to be a story about a well, right?

Today is your lucky day.

The pump broke. That means no water. Turn the faucet on--no water. This happened at the end of a day that included no internet service because it drizzled. Stupid farm.

I won't go into the details of how the 35 year old pump that is 150 feet under ground broke, but I tell you this--I know a lot about wells now. You would never read this blog again if I filled it with my knowledge of wells and pumps and how to fix them. But I could...

I'm sure someone looking at this
will think it's cool.

That truck is owned by the repair guy and the giant crane attached to it is what pulls pipe out of the ground, 20 feet at a time, to get to the broken pump. My dad got over the fact that the well was broken pretty quickly when he got to see these guys in action. He even instructed me to get Ryan's new camcorder to tape the riveting action of pump repair. He said it was for the boys, since they were in school and had to miss it. Mmmm hmmmm.

Late this afternoon I was reminded of another, shall we say feature of small town life when Bruce, the neighbor, stopped by. Bruce used to own my parents' property, subdivided it, and built his current house in the back 5 acres. My parents share the well with Bruce, so Bruce stopped by to talk to my dad about the repairs.

Here's the thing. People are always stopping by. All. The. Time. Just popping in for a visit. No calls, no warnings. Barely any knocking. One day I found John in the kitchen, just letting me know that he was here to pick up his moose meat. Yeah, you heard me.

On Saturday John's wife stopped by. She was on a walk, so she thought she'd drop by for a visit. Apparently this is perfectly normal around here. Which is why I see Joy about once a week on her way home from work, standing on the porch. I'm cooking dinner and suddenly there is a rap on the back door. Joy. With something random for my mom. It works the other way too. I've unwittingly inflicted the pop-in on people when traveling around town with mom. And 90 minutes later we're back on our way....I'm learning to say no when mom asks if I want to run a few quick errands. I just don't have that much time.

Tonight the well is in prime working order again and all is right with the world. For now. I need to start dinner, which means Joy should be here any second.