Flood

After a week of frigid weather, the sun was producing a nice thaw but when it crept around the corner of the house and hit the water pipes, the faucet blew off leaving a one inch gusher right into the window well. I had just finished lunch and noticed no water pressure to brush my teeth. Having just added salt to the water softener, I went down to check it and heard the waterfall coming in from the window. Not a good sound. It was easy to shut off the main valve and suck up the quarter-inch of water from the furnace room. Drying out the various items that had accumulated on the floor took another day. It could have been much worse had we been gone and the water run more than the few minutes that it did. And, of course, it could have been much better if one week ago I had remembered to turn off the water to the outside spigot after washing the vehicles on that fine sunny day.