It’s a bit nippy out there this morning. As I write this, we’re at -11C/12F, with a wind chill of -25C/-13F. We still have high winds, but not as bad as yesterday. I do see fallen branches around the inner yard, but not in areas we can get to to clean up, until the snow is gone. We’re looking at a possible high of -7C/19F this afternoon. Not bad for going out to help my mother with her errands.

Over the past few days, we had some rain, then the high winds and cold, and last night we got a light dusting of snow. The end result?

Our driveway and the flooded parts of the paths are a skating rink!

You can see where they were skidding around while trying to cross the ice! It’s frozen solid now; no need for rubber boots this morning, that’s for sure!

I counted 28 cats today, and they are definitely taking advantage of sun room to get out of the wind. Looking out the bathroom window, I was really wishing I had my phone with me to get a picture. On the platform above the heat lamp, there was at least 8 or 9 cats, all smashed together, looking at the window, creating a forest of necks, heads and ears sticking out of a furry mass! There were more in a pile on the other half of the platform, all curled up around each other on the self warming mat. It was adorably funny!

What isn’t funny is, we’re going to have to call a plumber.

For the past while, our toilet hasn’t been flushing well. Almost, but not quite, clogging. I tried plunging it last night, but with no actual clog, all I was doing was splashing water around. What I think the actual problem is, the drain pipe from under the bathroom to the septic outlet needs to be augured. When the drain for our washing machine started backing up, we had a plumber come in and he augured the pipe from under the kitchen to the corner under the bathroom. It’s likely the first time that was done since the addition was built, and we got running water in the house. Which means the other length to the septic tank has probably never been cleaned, and likely has 50 years of gunk accumulated inside.

Well, we’ll find out soon enough. After I did as much as I could, one of my daughters went to use the bathroom, and it was clogged. The weird thing, though, is that the bowl keeps filling. We knew we had some sort of phantom flush. Every now and then, the tank would suddenly start refilling, even though no one had flushed, but I didn’t realize it was leaking into the bowl. We’ve got a tall, mobility friendly toilet, and the water level in the bowl has always been very low. When we replaced the innards of the tank this past summer, we were able to increase the level a bit, but not much. Frankly, I think the low water level certainly wasn’t helping.

Now, we’re actually having to bail the water out of the bowl, because it just keeps filling, ever so slowly!

Meanwhile, no amount of plunging made a difference. I even got our plumber’s snake out, but it can’t get around the U bend.

We do have toilet-safe drain cleaner, and gave that a try, but it did absolutely nothing.

So, we set up the honey pot in the bathroom to use until a plumber can get here. Much preferable to making our way through the slippery paths to a bone-chilling cold outhouse! I’ll give the plumber a call after I’m done writing this, then make sure to leave the gate open when I leave for my mother’s. Our plumber has 24/7 emergency services, but none of us were up to that. Hopefully, clearing the pipes will be enough to fix the problem, and he won’t find some other, bigger problem on top of that!

Why does this stuff always seem to happen in the winter?

One more odd thing that I’ve noticed before, but was never quite sure of until now. I heard the septic pump going off this morning. Obviously, no one flushed the toilet, and no other water was being used anywhere, because everyone was in bed, and it was about 15 minutes or more since I’d bailed water out of the toilet bowl. Which means we’ve got water leaking into the septic tank enough to trigger the pump. Granted, we’re going to need to get the tank emptied, once the snow clears enough to make it accessible again. I know the solids side of the tank must be getting pretty full. The liquid side has a float to trigger the pump, so it gets emptied regularly. It just empties more often, the fuller the solids side gets, since there’s less room for the liquid. Still, just how much water is leaking into there, that it should trigger the pump like that? This is something that’s been bugging me pretty much since we’ve moved here but, until now, I was always second guessing myself, thinking that maybe I just didn’t hear someone flushing the toilet or using a sink somewhere. My bedroom is right above where the septic pump is, so I can hear that, but I can’t hear if someone’s using water elsewhere in the house. This time, I can be 100% sure that no one was using water anywhere. Talking with my daughter about it, just a little while ago, she wondered if the phantom flush leak is just a bit slower than the leak into the bowl.

Definitely something to tell the plumber about.

Time to make that phone call, and then start heading out to my mother’s!

The Re-Farmer