When it Rains…
It’s springtime, but the garden still has no water. It was shut down in late October, as always, when the garden season ended in the garden community where Walter has a summer house. It has no heater, save for a portable heating convector. Walter switches it on when it gets cold, especially towards the end of October. He stays in the garden until the water system is shut down—the time when his garden house is officially closed, the time when he goes back to his apartment in the city center, stays there a couple of days, and then off to the Philippines until mid-March, when the weather becomes unbearable for him. This trip to the Philippines is a personal choice and not directly related to the garden maintenance. Time to go back to Vienna, to his garden house.
Walter, the king of procrastination, has not set foot in his garden house since his return. The garden house had no electricity even before the season ended last fall. We needed an electrician to check on the circuit breaker, but Walter couldn’t be bothered. “Let’s have it done when we come back,” he said, brushing aside the issue. After all, why worry when we wouldn’t be there, anyway?
We have been back since the last week of March, and he has not done anything to remedy the situation. His legs swelled, preventing him from going to his garden house. Oh, well, there was always me to take over his role. The trees—apricot, apple, cherry, plum—were in bloom, and so were the tulips. The ground was the image of a yellow and white carpet—Löwenzahn (dandelions) and Gänseblümchen (wild daisies) in full bloom. The dandelions spread unchecked, taking over the garden in a couple of days if you do not pull them out, which is a task because their roots burrow deep into the ground.
They were a sight to behold when still young and fresh. I did not want to mow them, and I could not, since there was no electricity to charge the lawnmower batteries.
Renate, a neighbor in the garden community, gave Walter the gardener’s mobile phone number, who could help him restore power to his garden house. Walter should have called, but did not. What he needed, he said, was an electrician, not a gardener.
I was frustrated that the dandelions were getting wilder each day, and I could not do anything to stop them. Desperate, I called Renate and asked if she knew any electricians. “I gave Walter a number to call, but he has not called until now,” she told me. I’ll give you the number so you can call him.”
The gardener, who was recommended by Renate, picked up the call. He knew an electrician who could do the job. That was when it dawned on me that the message sent to Walter had been lost in translation. A few days later, the gardener came to the garden with a pair of electricians from Croatia, working black. But the electric power was back before they could schedule a visit to the garden. Thanks to my good neighbor, who said he would check it out upon hearing from me about the issue.
My good neighbor was Norbert, the husband of my good friend Marilyn. We live in the same apartment building complex. He is knowledgeable about almost everything, from growing orchids to carpentry to fixing your clogged bathroom sink—he is a plant wizard and a handyman. “Walter’s garden circuit breaker box may have been left open for an extended period, and the breakers may have been damaged,” he was confident about that as he tried to reset the main circuit breaker. Still, it would be off again in seconds.
He could not solve the issue the first time, but then discussed it with a colleague in the sauna. This colleague knows a lot about circuit breakers and told Norbert that if the main breaker keeps dropping to the off position, it means a defective appliance—a coffee maker, a fridge, or any of those—may be causing a power short circuit. I could see Norbert’s face brightening upon hearing what his colleague had just said. Once he was home, he rang me up to say we should return to the garden the next day to see if his colleague was right; he was. The electric oven was the culprit. And then there was light after we switched off the breaker connected to it. The relief was palpable as we finally saw the lights come back on.
Norbert and I were ecstatic, but not for long, once I told Walter that the lights were back on. “You left the breaker for the boiler on, didn’t you?” He said that leaving it on would damage the boiler, which had no water since we closed the house for winter. I hoped it would still work. Otherwise, it would be expensive to replace it—say, 800 Euros. The electric oven was left on because we were unaware it was causing a power short circuit.
When the plumber came to the garden to get the water system in the house running again, no hot water came out. He said the boiler was not working, but not necessarily kaputt, but an electrician would know. He was the same guy who would come every year to shut off the water lines over winter and turn them back on in spring. The kitchen faucet was leaking and needed to be replaced, so he said he would return the next day with a new one. Dealing with these water system issues was becoming increasingly frustrating.
A few days earlier, my cleaning lady came to the garden before the plumber did to help me prepare the veggie plots. Walter told me to plug in the water connection to the garden, should I need it, which I did. My cleaning lady said no water came from the faucet, but there was water under the sink, which was already flooded. I did not know that the plumber had left all the water faucets on to prevent the pipes from bursting if the temperature dropped to freezing and water was still inside them.
Sally, my cleaning lady, panicked when she saw the bathroom flooded. I turned off the primary water connection, immediately stopping the water from running further. The water on the floor was gone—where did it go? Water was knee-deep in the cellar when Sally went down with buckets to dispose of it, which she would painstakingly lift up for me to empty. They were heavy, believe me! Sally came to the garden to help me till the soil and cut the grass, and she got paid to do something else. The relief was palpable when the water issue was finally resolved.
Speaking of cutting the grass, the lawn mower batteries—a pair of them—would not charge, even overnight, while the dandelions grew wilder. Their dried puffs of blooms began to explode when the wind blew, spreading in the air and settling to the ground to propagate. I went to the garden store to get new batteries, which cost 49 Euros each! The salesman was surprised when I said I had had them for three years. He said they’re suitable for only one year. I was stunned to hear that, thinking an electric lawn mower would have been more economical, never mind the cable that could get in the way while cutting the grass. Replacing the batteries yearly for 49 Euros each is a terrible business deal—for the consumer. No one in the store told me about the disadvantages of getting a battery-operated grass cutter.
The plumber returned the next day to replace the old kitchen faucet. He went straight to the cellar to check on the other water connection. “Oops, the floor is flooded!” he exclaimed, shocked. He said the faucet was not switched off tightly; it was his fault. He began the day by shoveling water into the buckets. At the same time, I bent down from atop to reach the buckets overflowing with water. His bill was 196 euros—for the new faucet and the time he spent shoveling water out of the cellar. I had to mop the floor after he left.
He is coming to my apartment on Tuesday, he said, for my kitchen faucet problem. What was this thing about kitchen faucets? I asked myself. I was washing dishes after breakfast when I felt my feet getting wet. Water was flowing from under the sink. This must have happened for days, with water accumulating each time I turned the faucet on. I just noticed it that morning. I opened the under-sink kitchen cabinet doors and found a soggy box of dishwasher detergent tablets. The tablets, wrapped in plastic foil, spilled out when I lifted the box.
When it rains, it pours, the say. I say, shit happens.