I finally was able to get in touch with the person who will be doing our home visit. We have an appointment set up for December 19. As an additional miracle, I actually talked to people at the fire department today. I was so shocked when they answered the phone that I almost forgot why I was calling. The chief has to call me back so who knows when that may happen but at least contact has been made.

I need to rebleach my well again. When I was doing it I couldn’t figure out why I really couldn’t smell the bleach in the well. After going back and reading the fine print for the 100th time I went and checked the concentration on the bleach I used. I had 2% bleach instead of the 5.5% I needed. So I’m going to do it again Monday night. Tuesday is the next time I can submit a water sample and I don’t want to let too much time go between the bleaching and the sampling.

One weird thing did happen with the bleaching. When it was done I ran the water in the barn and couldn’t smell any bleach. I filled Spirit’s bucket and gave it to him. Then I went back and filled Prize’s without paying much attention. I hung it in her stall and my dear little drama queen of a horse about had the vapors. I swear if that horse had hands she’d be demanding a fan so she could flutter it in front of her face for effect. She would stretch her neck towards the bucket while having her body as far from it as possible. Then she would recoil to the back of her stall in the most melodramatic way and then repeat the procedure. I went into the stall to see what exactly the problem was. She stood ever so bravely behind me and would peek her nose around my body to the water and then retreat amid quivering and sighing. I informed her that she was quite pathetic. I sniffed her water and it smelled like bleach. I told her that I would fix it and that it wasn’t nearly as bad as she was acting. I don’t know why the bleach smell came through then. I had to run the water for a long time to get rid of it. When I finally got it cleared she accepted her water without comment. I went back and smelled Spirit’s and it didn’t smell at all. Very odd.