Something truly amazing happened here yesterday.

I ran water while the electricity was off.

You see, the electric company had to turn off my power while they replaced a pole in front of my house and it was off longer than I would have liked.

But I was able to run water.

For those of you who have never relied on a well, you’re probably wondering what the big deal is. You turn on your faucet and water comes flowing from some municipal water source just as it should.

The thing is, until this summer, I lived my entire life reliant on a well for water. Since well pumps require electricity to work, there was no water access during an outage.

I do live in a forest after all and dense woods can lead to trees on power lines at any time.

It’s inconvenient but you learn to manage. I have always kept plastic jugs filled with water for flushing. Gallon jugs of water from the store could be used for washing or drinking. If we knew a winter storm was on the way, I would fill pans of water of water too. Just in case.

But all that changed this summer when county water finally found its way up my road. It came part way several years ago and the end of the line was a hydrant less than a mile from my home. Now there’s a shiny new water tower on the hill behind my house and lines going on to several more households beyond my own.

My dad recalls a petition to bring water here back in the seventies so it had been a long time coming. I was the first on my road to sign up for a new tap this summer and have been enjoying the delights of county water since July.

I am grateful every day that I turn on a faucet and clean water comes out. It is plentiful. It tastes ok. It isn’t hard like my well water which the health department told us wasn’t even safe to drink. In fact, I now understand the lifetime of dental problems that have haunted me. There is no water filtration system that would make my well water healthy to drink.

I belong to some frugal living and nonconsumer groups on Facebook and am always shocked by the arrogance of people who announce to the world the easiest and smartest way to save money is to stop buying bottled water. “It’s wasteful,” they say. “There’s no excuse for it,” they say.

It’s just their lack of experience talking but they sound so tone deaf and so out of touch when they continue to argue with people like me who have essentially no choice. There are places in this country including on my own road where there is no water to be had. People have to haul in water by the truck full if they’re lucky or by the jug if they don’t have a way to haul large amounts. I once saw a news story about an Indian Reservation in this country where the government helped fund new house trailers for seniors but they’re on land without water. The kitchen faucet may be pretty but it’s useless for those folks who have to carry in gallon jugs and heat their water in a pan on the stove.

While I had running water, we lived in fear of a drought or that the pump might go bad. These things never happened at two in the afternoon either. It was always late at night or on the coldest or hottest day of the year and parts aren’t always easy to come by. The local well drilling company is wonderful but they can’t always come at a moment’s notice.

I still keep water on hand because a line break is always possible and I’ve experienced a few days of pressure issues as they’ve been extending the new lines. So I still have to be prepared but not at the level I did this time last year.

Again, I am grateful.

I hope the novelty of running water on a day without electricity is never lost on me because it sparked true and powerful joy when I could wash my hands and fill a water bottle without thought or labor!