Sunday, August 14, 2011 :: Skunk #5 Welcome's Us Home

You know, I always suspected there was one more skunk. And when we took off for a week's vacation in Branson last Sunday, and Dustin said it kinda smelled like a dead animal in the crawl space when he closed the doors, I wondered what we would come home to.

Well, this is what we came home to....hello skunk #5 (or what was left of skunk #5):

Yes, that's right, it is dead, floating in water in our crawl space.

And goodbye skunk #5:

Seriously, that was disgusting. And the whole house still smells like dead animal skunk.

And you would think that would be enough drama for us to come home to, right??? RIGHT???

Of course not.

Remember that room that had water all over the floor when we put our "new water system" in? Well, our hot water heater is in that little room, too. And today, of all days, upon arriving home and turning the water system back on, it decided to spring a leak and continuously pour water all over the floor. "What caused that?" you ask?? I have no idea. It is less than 10 years old.

I have to tell you, I wasn't even surprised. I just went and got the Little Green Machine and started sucking up water. Two buckets full.


And it just kept coming. So, of course you would think, "Just turn the water valve off to the hot water heater." Oh yes, it should be that simple, shouldn't it. But not here, in twilight zone world. No, the only way to shut the water off to the hot water heater is to shut the water off to the whole house.

And our plumber would have had one in stock, but for some reason that didn't make sense to me and doesn't really matter, he doesn't. So, I guess we're living without water, once again. 


But here's the best part. Realizing we couldn't have water draining out of the hot water heater onto that floor anymore (we're starting to fear the floor might cave in at some point....), Dustin takes a drill in there and drills a hole through the floor. So the water can drain into the crawl space. (which is full of water anyway) And as he puts the drill away, he comments, "There are advantages to living in an old house--when the water starts to pour out on the floor, you just drill a hole."

So either we've officially gone crazy, or we've learned the lesson of just dealing with a crisis rather than reacting to it.

Speaking of crisis', (and one that is bigger than skunks and hot water heaters) they apparently have not found the State Trooper that disappeared here nearly 2 weeks ago. The search has been scaled back significantly, although as of tonight, it was still ongoing. We've heard the Red Cross and the Mobile Command Unit will be leaving soon. I hope they find him, at least so the family can have some sort of closure.

Jamie and/or Rick Barnes posted another video of the Railroad work going on. It is interesting, especially when you think they have raised the actual highway in order to accomplish the work they are doing on the rails. (The highway would have been under water most, if not all, of this way.) Of course I wonder what one does with that partially one lane highway once the water recedes. As if the state department didn't have their work cut out for them already...

Here's the video:


On the bright side, we had a fantastic vacation. It was so nice to get away and just spend some relaxing time not dealing with anything but what fun thing to do next. No hip-waders, no boxes to unpack, no SKUNKS, no check points, just fun. Of course, we live surrounded by water, and where did we spend most of our time on vacation?? Yes, IN WATER.