Life Without Running Water – You Can Survive

How did we survive?

Did we take baths?

Did we stink?

What did we drink?

There was a large truck with a 100 gallon tank on the back end. The well was not up to date and the pump wouldn’t work. My father was insistent about not placing the water in the well. He was also insistent about not hooking running water into our house. Neither did he care to put the money into it either. I was going to learn how a sailor felt on a container ship, a submarine, or how it was like to appreciate the old days.

Why?

He had many numerous excuses, but that is not the point of this article.

The point is that someone really can survive without any running water. It is then that you realize how precious water can become, you don’t ever have the chance to let the water run as you are brushing your teeth as you listen to the drain gurgle of all the clean water washing down.

No, in fact, when you brush your teeth without running water, you get one cup of water. Dip the toothbrush into the cup, apply toothpaste, then brush. Spit, take half of the cup and swish.

Spit.

The remainder of the cup pour down the drain as you aim carefully at all the toothpaste spit and rinsing it down the drain.

We were grateful enough to have sewer and a drain system.

A toilet will flush with two gallons of water after you have done your business. Buckets were used for this and the water was stored 500 feet from the house, during the summer. During winter, it was stored inside in old milk jugs that were rinsed out. This was the time that our water supply had to be carefully monitored.

Yes, baths were taken, but not like you may have in everyday life. It was in a plastic tub, the size of your kitchen sink.

How?

We did not have a water heater, we had an old deep fat fryer that we boiled water. Waited to boil and then started the process of a bath.

Wash your face first. Then wash your hair, place a towel around your head. Next you need to wash the rest of your body, take the small tub and place it on the floor and step into it. Start at your shoulders and start scrubbing down.

Then rinse your rag and scrub down again.

Bath completed.

I hated not having running water. I was so embarrassed to have any friends come to my house, so I went to theirs. If they came to the house, they never went inside.

We had pets, yes, many of them.

They were given a lot of the water supply. Livestock tanks were filled, first. Careful monitoring of how fast they drank the water meant it would soon be water day.

Water day, I grew to love and loathe at the same time. As in water day was a lot of work.

It was my job to climb to the top of the water tank of the back of the truck. The hose had high pressure and I only weighed 60 pounds when I was wrestling with this large water hose.

The drive home was slow so that every drop of water made it home.

The process was excruciating yet rewarding as we had water again.

Since we didn’t have a bathtub it was when I was in fourth grade that my dad brought in plastic barrels and created a electric pump to suck out the water from the barrels. The milk jugs now were used for only drinking water.

It was a step that I was so excited about that I played with the electric running water, but I poured it back into the barrel. We had electric running water!

Then six years later, my dad decided to get rural water. They had ran water into the rural areas around the country. I was so excited that I held the excitement in, I didn’t tell my friends, “Oh my gosh, we might get normal running water!”

No. I did not. Instead I was disappointed to learn that the running water would entail a hydrant at the 500 feet mark away from the house. The running water was still me in the sense that I carried five gallon buckets the 500 feet to flush the toilet. To collect the water that needed to be heated for washing dishes, baths, and took a milk jug with me to get the drinking water.

I was still the running water. A farm that was covered in garden hoses strung from the one water hydrant, and electrical drop cords to run the inside barrels.

I dreamed of the day to have running water. I dreamed of the day I was leaving, more and more everyday.

I am going to challenge you to live one week without running water. Turn off your water heater, you are not going to need it. Turn off your water inside, you aren’t going to need it either, not to live like this.

In this challenge I am going to issue you, 5 milk jugs. Yes, this is enough water to get you through the week to drink. You need a five gallon bucket for collection from whatever source you invent for your baths, washing dishes or other uses.

Did you accept the challenge or run? If you accepted the challenge did you last the full week before you turned on your water heater and water?