How my 2011 started off with a "Bang'...and not in a good way

I had a great Christmas holiday filled with great family, friends and more food than is healthy.  It was a really nice time...until New Year's that is.  I worked on New Year's eve.  It was a good day at work, although a bit slow in the afternoon which was to be expected.  My boss even told us to shut down an hour ahead of schedule and enjoy our evening.  So J picked me up from work early and we headed home to pack and go to the party we were planning on attending which was about an hours drive away.  I felt like we were rushing a bit but we wanted to get on the road.  I should mention that the day before we both had "eye emergencies" so our pocket book was feeling a little tight.  (J broke his glasses and had to get a new pair...$400...and I managed to get something under my contact and scratch my eye...fun!)  We packed an overnight bag, fueled up and headed out.  After driving for about 30 minutes we realized we had forgotten a few things that we were supposed to bring...I was considering suggesting that we turn around and go get them since we were a hour ahead of schedule as it was when BANG!  There was a loud crash in the engine followed by all the lights dimming in the car and the battery light came on.  J limped the car to the side of the road and shut it off then got out to check what was going on.  When he opened the hood of the car all I saw in the pitch black on the side of the road was a lot of smoke.  Thank goodness for cell phones!

We called J's dad to come help us and he headed out right away.  The problem was he wouldn't be there for 45 minutes and it was -34 with the wind chill.  We couldn't start the car for heat as the belt had come off and there was very little battery power left and we needed to keep the emergency flashers going so we didn't get hit by another car on the highway on top of things.  It was very cold and very very dark out.  I'm glad I keep a set of gloves and a touque in my coat pocket at all times.  We sat there and waited.  And waited.  And watched all the windows frost over while we waited some more.  I was disgusted at the amount of cars that sped by and didn't even slow down or stop to see if we were ok.  If we didn't have cell phones we may have frozen to death waiting for help.  We were at least a 40 minute walk from anywhere.  J's dad arrived and rescued us and took us out to the farm where my awesome nephews were waiting with warm blankets and a warm drink.

I spent all night stressing about how we were going to afford to fix and and how much it was going to cost. The next day J and his dad were planning to head out to the car first thing to take a look in the daylight and see what the damage was and how bad it was when disaster struck.  The cattle had no water.  Something was wrong with the pump and now all of the animals had nothing to drink.  Obviously this took priority.  We bundled up and headed out to the pond where the water is pumped from and found that a branch had broken off a nearby tree and fallen on the rope that holds the intake in place under the water.  The rope had pulled the intake close to the surface of the lake and it froze.  We spent the next 7 hours chipping the intake and hose out of the ice which was about 2 feet thick, repairing the hose after it was punctured by one of the ice picks and replacing the motor on the pump since it had burned out.  This was interrupted by a daring escape by the horses lead by the ponies who had discovered that the snow allowed then to cross the lake, get over the fence via a deep drift and cross over the cattle gate that was covered in snow.  Thank goodness horses are easy to round up when they are trained and used to humans so that didn't take long.  By the time we finished with all the farm disasters it was dark again and they still hadn't looked at the car.  Did I mention that I had an appointment at 9 the next morning back in the city?  Luckily J's dad got up early and drove me home and then took J back out to the car.  It turned out to be a broken pulley and they managed to find the right part, tow it to the shop and fix it while I was at my appointment.  Thank goodness for small favors.  Here's hoping 2011 gets better.