At 6 p.m., I came home – I was at the Mansion dropping off some new DVD’s for the residents there – and Jay Bridge was just packing up his tools.

“You have water,” he said, in his understated way. I was very grateful and appreciative of my friend Jay Bridge today. I was frantic this morning, the plumbers I knew of either wouldn’t call me back, were about to go to Mexico on vacation, or wouldn’t work on the old point wells, like the one in our basement.

Some were busy with other jobs, several just didn’t want to take the job on now, for what I am sure were good reasons.

We definitely felt out in the cold, and quite vulnerable for a night and a day. I texted Jay at 7 a.m., and he answered me quickly (I had to call the plumbers five or six times just to hear a “no.”). Can you fix a pump on a point well, I asked?

Sure, he said, I’ll be over at 10.

He came to our house, examined our point well and pump, went out to buy a new pump and spent the next six hours in our cold and dark basement installing a new pump. It was hard, cold, dirty work, lots of  wrench and pipe and wiring work.

Four different plumbers declined to come and help us get water on the eve of advancing brutal cold front and what appears to be a massive winter storm that could dump 15 or more inches on the farm on Saturday night and all day Sunday.

When Jay left, I texted Maria who was leaving her belly dancing class: “We have water!” She was as relieved and happy as I was. This water thing took up the whole day and threw us off-balance.

I admit to being alarmed at the prospects of spending those weekend days without water or hot water heat in the farmhouse. I was happy to go pee outside but that was getting old. And I didn’t relish not showering for days, or finding a friend’s shower to borrow. I didn’t sleep much last night.

We do have two wood stoves, but they would have been pressed to keep the farmhouse warm in the fact of sub-zero temperatures, high winds and so much snow. We would have been hauling containers and buckets up from the creek for the animals, and for us, and our toilet and bathroom.

I thanked Jay, he is a shy man and thanks embarrass him, I think. I remember that he built our beautiful little Free Library and wouldn’t accept payment. It was, he said, for the community. Jay is like that.

I don’t believe I have any other friend who would have come over here so quickly and spent so much time putting a pump in. He will give me a bill, and I will be happy to pay it. He doesn’t work for free, and I wouldn’t let him. He is so careful in his work, so thorough and diligent. There were lots of moving parts and wires.

It is a gift to have a trained engineer/geologist put a new pump on our humble little old point well. It is humbling to see such a good man do such good work. I know he wanted to help us, Jay doesn’t need the work or the money.

I ran and washed all the dirty dishes, gave water to the animals in their heated bucket, emptied out the water buckets stacked up in our bathroom, I stoked the fires until they were both roaring.

Now, I’m going to sit with Maria and read Mary Oliver. I’ll play piano music on my Beats speaker – Solitudes, Piano Notes, Healing Music. And light a candle to this great poet and thank her for her work and for all the pleasure and inspiration she brought to us.

On and off today, I thought of the federal workers without their pay, I thought of the people who built this house who would have been lucky to have two good cast iron wood stoves roaring. Hauling water from the creek was just part of the day.

We, lulled by the false promise of technology and devices, are so different from them.

I am happy to ride out the storm now. It was almost something more than that.

I’m lucky to have a friend like Jay.