Alligator tale

The cheese cave / fridge arrived yesterday lunchtime. I unpacked it in the garage, and using a sack barrow and strong arms I moved it up into the pantry and onto the bench. It fits snugly.

I plugged it into its external thermostat this afternoon (see the extra) so that it will retain a temperature of around 13C, which is optimal for a cheese cave. 

I am stoked with it. There is space for heaps more cheeses, and only looks full because I have begun to cut and divide cheeses for Xmas boxes. Each cut cheese goes into a plastic container until I select 1/4s and 1/2s to go into the next gift boxes this weekend.

It is a lengthy process because I am wrapping and labelling each chunk of cheese, then double wrapping those which have to go into the mail, before packing them carefully into big boxes with small jars of chutney and homemade crackers. 

I’ve only packed and posted one gift so far, and it took me two and a half hours! The next ones will be quicker now that the cheeses are cut up.

There was a slight hiccup in my calm contentment this morning when I noticed (after I’d watered the tunnel house and had a shower) that the marker indicating the water level in my huge tank was in its lowest possible position. I thumped on the tank wall and heard hollowness: it had about 15cm of water in it. It should be full and have more than 3m of water.

I felt sick. Water is something I can’t do without Chez Mima and I was perilously close to draining the supply. Fortunately I have the phone number of Bob, the water scheme’s engineer (thanks to Bean finding a leak a few months ago) so I gave him a call and he arrived an hour later.

He said “I always check the restrictor first because it can easily get blocked”. He then undid some of the pipe work going up the side of the tank, revealed the restrictor (which limits the flow to give me a maximum of 1818 litres of water each 24 hours) and exclaimed “That’s your problem!” There was a minute bit of plastic which somehow had travelled up the pipe and got stuck in the outlet. He pinched it out between finger- and thumbnail, and bingo! Normal water service resumed instantly. I could have hugged him. Instead I hugged the water tank and listened to beautiful water trickling in once more.

Bob the engineer and I then stood on the deck admiring the view and he told me some fascinating stuff about people who used to live in the abandoned properties next door. He’s been here all his life (60-odd years) and remembers these four sections when they all had conventional houses and lovely gardens. 

He also told me of the time when he was helping out a palaeontologist mapping limestone features in a local quarry, when he spotted a massive alligator fossil in the quarry face. He said they could clearly see the teeth, eye sockets and jaw, and then far far away they found the end of the tail. Eventually the whole thing was excavated and is in a museum collection now. 

It will almost be worthwhile to have another water-woe, just to get Bob back for more tales from North Otago. He is a great raconteur.