Help From Mother Nature

My husband and I bought an old farmhouse that we are in the process of renovating. Though we dreamed of buying an already finished ecohome, this was not within our scope (read: budget and time constraints).

The house is in central Massachusetts, and Massachusetts in general is not big on gas pipelines. This means our house relies on oil for heating. We set about to change this, and ended up with a new Harman pellet stove. I like knowing our fuel source is conflict-free and made from waste.

We did some research to determine the best spot for the stove. It’s in our family room downstairs and heats our entire house. Our house feels warmer than it ever did using oil and we have slashed our heating costs in half.

We did have a challenge along the way. On a particularly cold day, our pipes burst. We have baseboard heat, and since our boiler was not being used as often the water in the pipes froze. To make things worse, the pipe that burst was in our garage.

Since we are fixing up the house bit by bit as we find time, we park our cars in the driveway and use the garage as a workstation.

What I am saying is, a pipe burst in our garage and sometimes we don’t go to the garage for up to two weeks at a time.

Since practicing the best grounding meditation the synchronicity in my life has exploded. On the day the pipe burst, I was out with my son. I pulled into our driveway around 6 pm and prepared to enter our house through the front door, as usual. I heard a strange shriek. It sounded like a cross between children taunting me and a baby crying. It was coming from the trees that line our driveway. Suddenly I realized what it was.

Fisher cats. Our home backs up to 300 acres of conserved forest. I knew fisher cats were in the area but I had never seen them so close to the street. I trusted that my baby and I would be safe, but was not willing to take any unnecessary risks. I scooped my son out from his car seat and opened the garage door using the opener in my car. We hurried into the garage and I closed the door.

I caught my breath and felt grateful that we were ok. And then I heard it. A popping noise, and water flowing. I had just witnessed the pipe breaking. Because we caught the pipe breaking so early, it was an easy fix.

I have not seen or heard a fisher cat since. I am so grateful to Mother Earth and her animals for this synchronicity that spared my family from unnecessary trouble.

As for our pellet stove and pipes, we found a wonderful solution through yet another synchronicity. We installed a thermguard that we purchased from Bear Mountain Design. It circulates the water in our pipes on a timer so that they don’t freeze.