Today I woke up tired and slightly frustrated, after yet another night where I was woken up several times by the barking and howling dog of my neighbor.
The night before, I woke up dozens of times ( hardly slept ) due to having my niece and nephew over ( for a sleepover ) and them sleeping and me lying awake, as per usual haha!
Those two kids make so many noises ( during the day and ) during the night; grinding their teeth, rolling around, talking in their sleep, snoring etc. and I am a light sleeper who is very much used to sleeping alone, so you do the maths ;<)
And as an added bonus, the night before that, I didn't sleep great ( and that's an understatement ) due to the constant noise made by a compressor, a machine on the outside of my house/ bathroom that has to do with the water system, as well as an annoying beeping of the solar system ( apparently running empty ).
I only learnt about the running empty part of the solar system the next day. As mentioned before, I found out that the compressor had become detached and after I tried to re-attach it, which didn't really work, it started leaking water ( I had emptied a couple of watering cans of creek water in the empty watering tanks on the hill above my house, in order to run a test ), so I decided to turn the 'poor' and now useless machine off, after having discovered an ON-OFF switch on the side.
What follows is a close-up of the connection that came detached, during the night, and started leaking water and probably led to me running out of electricity the next day, as the compressor kept going throughout the night, pumping ( no water ) in vain
Soon after that, I ran out of electricity, immediately after I started up one single machine inside of the house, early morning.
So now I found myself without electricity, without running water and thus without water in the kitchen taps, the bathroom ( toilet, washing basin, shower/ bath tap ).
I forgot to tell that I ran out of water the night before. In fact, late at night, just before bed, I noticed that there was no water coming out of the taps.
Oh how I love off-grid life, away from the comforts of the city!
As most people do ( myself included ), I tried to fix things myself, first.
I knew that I needed to run the generator to get the electricity to work and/ or refill the water tanks with water from the creek at the edge of my land. But, by now you can probably almost guess this, I also found myself out of petrol ( to run the generator with ) and I don't drive a car/ the nearest gas station is miles away.
The generator tells me its low on fuel
Here's a close up of the pump near the creek ( and my hand and arm ) for which I needed petrol in the generator to get it to pump water up the hill, inside the water tanks. I had to unscrew that bolt to fill the pump with water, first, before pumping and did so. This was before I found out about the lack of petrol in the generator and there being no spare petrol on the property
And here's a pic of the house and the solar panels ( the generator is located in a wooden box just outside of the picture
They say challenges come in groups of 3
and I like a good challenge.
Experiencing a smoking and heavily vibrating generator ( I was using it for the first time and decided to switch it off after a minute or two ) and not being able to be at 3 places at once ( at the pump near the creek, next to the generator and at the water tanks on the hill at the back of the house ), I asked for some long distance help: messaging the previous tenants/ friends of mine. I also decided to inform my twin sister who lives nearby and has a boyfriend who is quite the handy man, with the knowledge that they would visit the next day ( to drop the kids off for their sleep-over ).
Meanwhile, I patiently waited for the sun to shine enough on the solar panels to at least get the electricity ( inside of the house ) to run again. That wish was granted at the end of the afternoon. It still wasn't enough/ sufficient power to get the generator to run ( although I tried for a minute, as mentioned before, before I found out about the low fuel ), this time of year. It might be sunny and warmer than average but it's still Winter, out here in Portugal.
I now had to wait a day for petrol and to hopefully get my compressor fixed, before I could enjoy the comfort of ( warm and ) running water, inside the house and, in all honesty, that was alright.
I had already waited for a handful of days for a new gas bottle to heat my water, prior to this ( hence my recent Bathing like a King - Having Dates with Nuts post ) and struggled with my wood burner, so I could endure this little hickup too.
In other words: buckets of creek water, to flush the toilet with and to be boiled on my gas stove for washing my face, doing the dishes, etc.
not the toilet water
and hand-washing my underwear at that same spring that is bordering my land would have to make do until then.
I would surely survive, right?
and please don't call me Shirley
TO BE CONVINUED...