the new house

the new house has water that is supplied from a local artesian well.

this means that, for the first time in 40 years, i am drinking water from the tap, CONSENTUALLY.

for A LONG time now — probably closing in on 40 years — if there was artesian well water, i would prefer that to anything else. if it wasn’t available, for a while, i used a filtration sysem. it’s not that i’m freaked out about flouride in the tap water, it’s just that i know the pipes underneath my house.

i discovered well #5 through whispered hippie lore, shortly after i arrived in bellingham in 1979, but i didn’t actually learn its location until probably 10 years later, when i was hanging around with ruth, who took me there a number of times. it was during this time that i got my first 5 gallon bottle, one that i liberated from the advertising company i worked for.

then i got a second 5 gallon bottle… and a third… and a fourth… and a fifth… and a sixth… and a seventh, which came to me shortly before we moved.

i haven’t been to well #5 since we moved. 5 of the bottles are out in the shed. the other two went away with the old house garbage.

we knew about the water source before we moved in. that was one of the deciding factors. basically, it saves the gas money to get to lynnwood and back… which was one of the reasons for the sixth and seventh bottles in the first place.

we did NOT know that the house has central air conditioning. we knew that it had a heat pump/air conditioner upstairs, but not throughout the whole house. when we took possession, the heater was turned off, and when i turned it on, it came up in “heat” mode, and the air conditioner upstairs didn’t work at all… so, we fell back on the old reliable fans, that we had from the old place, and figured we’d deal with it later. when later came, about a month later, i called a HVAC specialist to come out and evaluate. he reset the computer and taught us how to use it, and now we have central AC throughout the whole house… it turns out that the previous owner (who had the system installed in 2018) hadn’t been using the air conditioner, and had only been using the system for heat. the air conditioner upstairs didn’t work because, if one of the controllers is set to cool and the other is set to heat, even if it is turned off, neither of them work, and you have to turn the whole system off to reset the computer before it works again.

i have NEVER lived in a house with central air conditioning. at best i have had one of those air conditioners that hang out a window, or ones that have a vent to a window. to me, a house with central air conditioning was “fancy”, and the only people i KNEW who lived in a house with central AC were my aunt and uncle, who were lanndowner/farmers in central illinois. even my grandparents, who all lived in central illinois, didn’t have central AC.

i suppose this may be the price we have to pay to live in the vicinity of DJ, who came into the kitchen — AGAIN — about a week ago — if i hadn’t been there, the dog would have followed him — and, according to moe who talked to the neighbours on the other side, they think DJ may have taken a shit in their fountain… it could be, he wanders the neighbourhood with no pants… 😒 we put a digital lock on the front door, that automatically locks when someone who has the digital key passes through, so that there will be no more unwanted kid or dog in the kitchen. we’ve had to put up a visual barrier (shade cloth) on the fence, to prevent their dogs from bothering our dogs.

but the more we do to isolate ourselves, and fend off their kid, the more it just enables them to slack off and be lousy pet owners and worse parents. i’m afraid it’s just a matter of time before we have to call CPS, the police, or both. i’m aware of the fact that “the subgenius needs slack”, but when it comes to neglecting your handicapped kid, it’s going too far.