Portage River Farm

I was away from home until late on Thursday evening, arriving a little after midnight. Everyone was nestled in and fast asleep as I made my usual rounds to check on them and deliver the expected goodnight kisses. As I was trudging off to bed, I realized that I had neglected to freeze the day's batch of maple sap. It was still sitting on the stove and now needed to be reboiled.

I sighed wearily with the realization that I had to stay up for another thirty minutes to give the sap time to boil. Turning the knob, I heard the familiar "tick, tick, tick" of the pilot on the burner beneath the pot but the expected "woof" as the gas caught the flame did not come. I soon realized that there was no gas!

This new home is my first experience with LP gas. Everywhere else that I have lived has been piped into the vast network of natural gas lines and I have never had to pay any attention to it before. Ironically, our farm is bisected by a 900psi natural gas pipeline that runs from the Texas panhandle clear across the country to a storage facility in mid-Michigan. On its way it passes within 300 feet of our front porch.

Going down to the basement, I checked on the furnace and the water heater. Sure enough, both were making futile attempts to complete their tasks while neither had the accompanying blue glow that showed their efforts were succeeding. Next I headed outside to have a look at the gage on the "pig", the 400 gallon gas tank that sits beside our house. Peering at the gage with flashlight in hand, I could see that it was bone dry. I returned to the living room to place a call to the gas company.

To understand how I was feeling at that moment, you need to know that we are signed up for the "always full" option for our gas supply. By selecting this option and paying the corresponding monthly rate, they are supposed to regularly visit and top off our tank so that we never have to worry about it. As I waited on the phone my mind kept returning to the image of their billboards which read "Trust us to keep the heat on for you."

The emergency operator for the gas company office in Kansas City was very friendly and apologetic. She said that she would notify our local gas driver on night duty and that he would be here as soon as possible. She tried to convince me that I should wake everyone and leave the house immediately in case there had been a gas leak.

I thanked her for the advice and said I would check again for any odd smells and heed her warning if it seemed necessary. The fact that I didn't smell any gas and the anticipation of the tongue-lashing that I would take if I attempted to make them all get up to go sit in the car in the middle of the night was enough to convince me that I should leave them in peace. Instead, I resolved that would I stay awake and monitor the situation until the gas truck arrived.

Roughly twenty minutes after hanging up from my first call, my cell phone rang. On the other end a very sleepy driver asked me if I needed him to come out with the gas truck immediately. It was clear that he was praying that I would tell him that it could wait until morning but I was insistent. In response, he sighed and said he would be here as soon as he could.

As I waited, I entertained myself by watching video excerpts of performances by comedian Lewis Black on YouTube. He is the angry commentator who frequently appears on the Jon Stewart show. If you don't mind the frequent f-bombs included in his delivery, he can be very funny and insightful. The time passed easily as I snickered at his angry protests about everything from bottled water to politics.

The gas truck finally came backing up the drive at 3:30am. The driver, now fully awake, was very friendly as he went about his work. He came inside to check that all of the pilots ignited properly before bidding me goodnight and steering his lumbering truck back out our pot-holed drive.

My head hit the pillow at about 4:30am for a short nap before I had to get up for work the next morning.