A (not THE) key to marriage

Complementary skill sets.

The Fairy Queen can do many things: laugh at herself, bake a pie, host a party, remember important dates, and occasionally move 32 children from one place to another with ninja-like stealth.

What she cannot do is fix things. Breaking things? No problem. She's Olympic-level, medaling in all the categories (random, creative, how could you possibly? and I told you not to force it!).

When the FQ lived alone, her household fix-it solution was known as Call the Landlord. Now, 14 years into being a joint homeowner, it's clear that the only solution ever is Call Phrodaux. He will find/make/hammer/weld/cajole a fix into place.

For example...
We did not make it to the farm during the recent hideous cold snap. Nice neighbors down there kept us posted about the roads (terrible) and the temperatures (5 degrees, yikes). Check out the waterfall (essentially the same view as at the top of your screen right now).

When we finally did get down to our little house...

we found that things were mostly OK. No burst pipes, no flood. But also, no cold water in the kitchen. Easy to live with on a Friday night, but not for the whole weekend. So Saturday, bright and early, Phrodaux started down the curvy road to problem identification/resolution.

Here's the FQ-abridged version: Big chunk of ice in the well house pressure tank scraped a bunch of rusty goop off the side of the tank, which then began a journey through the pipes. Journey is the key word here, as this problem was on the move! Fix it here, it crops up over there. Water here, no water there, at one point water everywhere.

My job, as is often the case, is to stand by. Hand over some tools, turn a faucet on or off, listen for yelling. Toward the end of this interesting morning, I was doing the yelling, as Phrodaux did something somewhere else in the house and water shot out of the disassembled faucet. I tried to cap it with my hands, but it had already reached the ceiling.

Phrodaux, upon  witnessing this exciting scene, calmly said, "That's some pressure." Proving that another key to marriage is never to panic, followed shortly by the reminder that it's better to get all the messes out of the way before you start the clean up.

At any rate, it was all wrapped up by mid-afternoon, leaving plenty of time for a trip into town, a visit to the egg lady, and a tall grass ramble with the dogs (always fun, but even more so when you're properly attired):

PS: You know it's a good day when a) you have hot and cold running water in all faucets; b) Nubie doesn't look TOO nervous; and c) Mo gets tired.

 (Phrodaux: don't ask FQ about the gallon jar of brownish but drinkable water that we set aside for while the water was off, there was going to be a picture. See paragraph after the pie picture above)