The temperatures are dropping and they are going to continue to drop throughout this week. This, of course, always raises my level of concern when it comes to my plumbing in “this old house.”  Naturally, my worse fear came true. Two of my bathroom tubs were not draining. And why were they not draining? Well, dripping of the faucet left enough water in the tub drain to freeze and create a block.

     Meanwhile RJ was outside plowing out the driveways and parking lots. He has this thing about creating paths for the guests… our dogs… to the dock… to the wood pile… and so on. This is after Bubba, my plow guy, goes his job and moves the mounds of snow out of the way so we can get out from the “little house.”  Bubba gets finished in what I think is a reasonable amount of time considering what he has to do.  RJ’s plowing, on the other hand, takes quite a bit of time because of all the hand shoveling that needs to be done. Besides sidewalks, there are decks to be shoveled, fire escapes and patios.

     So while RJ is outside doing his thing, I’m inside cleaning rooms, doing dishes, and vacuuming. I wandered downstairs to finish the Stewart Room when I hear this dripping. Dripping is not good. There should be no dripping is there is no water on. So I check out the McGinnis and there is water standing in the bathtub. Hmmm… why is that? I’ve never had a problem in this bathroom. The temperature in the room is around 55. I went into the Skivington. Now there we have had a problem. Last winter the pipe froze up and RJ spent half a day unplugging it. This year I made sure I kept the rooms warming to avoid this situation.  Guess what? There was standing water in that bathtub, too! Agh!!! I scooped that water out of the tub and tossed it down the toilet.  Then I added lots of hot water. I figured the hot water would warm up the tub and hopefully the drain pipe.

     Then I was off to the McGinnis to do the same thing.  Drain the tub and add lots of hot water. I must of drained and added hot water 3 TIMES trying to thaw out those pipes. By then RJ had come over to the Inn, and decided to turn off the water in that section of the house to change washers to prevent the dripping and therefore the ice clog.  By then, it was going on 4:00 PM, and we were expected at the Rotary Club’s get-together for their visitors from South Africa.  I left my frozen drain pipes and I went to the “little house” to make dinner and change by clothes for the gathering.

     When I returned at 9:30 PM, RJ and I decided to check the bathrooms before we called it a night.  The McGinnis had drained. Yea!!! By I was not so lucky with the Skivington. The water in the tub was cold so I scooped all the water out, tossed it in the toilet and wiped out the tub. There was still standing water in the drain. Not much I could tonight.  It was getting late. 

     We have a Don the plumber coming over tomorrow to work on the thermostats that are not working properly.  Two of them are not controlling the call for heat for the fireplaces. He may be doing bathtub drain if I can’t get it to drain by the time he gets here.

     Then it’s off to Henrietta. I need to get the Tahoe inspected, which will leave me some time to grocery shop and pick up the yarn I need to finish my caplet. Now that’s another story.  I had worked so hard on my caplet for my sister only to run out of a particular color. Now RJ knows I have a stash of yarn. I mean a really large stash of yarn. All kinds. I pulled out one of my boxes in search for a matching color. I was sure I had one more skein left.  I only needed about 25 yards or so. Of course, I couldn’t find anything close. I had about 6 other colors that were the same yarn and not one of these colors would match. Aghh! again.  So now I’ll have to buy one more skein to finish. I’m planning to visit my sister on Sunday, so it better be finished.

     More tomorrow on my frozen pipes.