No Water...Again!

Yesterday afternoon I went to the laundromat up the road.  Noticed that there were a lot of electric crews installing new telephone poles, did not give it a second thought.  It was a pretty hot day so came home and showered before eating my supper.  It was a good thing because when I got ready to wash the dishes...there was no water!

I knew I paid the water bill but who do I call to inquire if it is only our house or area wide?  The neighbors have all ditched their landlines and I have no idea what their cell phone numbers are.  The water department was already closed so went online to the City of Del Rio webpage.  There I found out the contractors putting in the telephone poles broke a water main.  They refer you to their Facebook or Twitter account for further information.  Darn, I don't do Facebook or Twitter or for that matter use social sites!

The day before I had given Walter 9 gallons of water and since I was in a hurry I did not fill them back up,  the good thing was I still had 8 gallons left.  Heard the toilet tank filling up around 2:14 a.m. but it was filling up with a lot of force...I was afraid it might bust the tank!

This morning I went to water Walter since I knew the owner's son was not going to fill his water barrel before going to school.  As you can tell from the angle the sun hits the barrel...it was empty and had been for two days. Darn kid!!!

By this afternoon the water looked clear so I found some more milk jugs and managed to fill 20 gallons worth.  Good thing I did, because around 7:00 p.m. the water went off again!

On a different note... I spoke to the mechanic earlier this afternoon and he told me to send him Dad's car.  Called Triple A at 1:15 p.m. and they did not show up until 3:55 p.m.  Heck I get faster service in Houston than I do here. On the positive side, it is on its way to be fixed.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Walter Update

The last time Walter was at our house was on July 28^th when he escaped through the downed back fence.  This is the post I did about it 

http://terlinguadreams.blogspot.com/2012/07/little-john-walter-deere-has-been-bad.html 

After that incident he disappeared for about two weeks.  When I inquired about his whereabouts the owners kid told me Walter had been sent to their cousin’s house.  They brought him back two days before I left for Houston thus had not had a chance to see him.

The day I returned from Houston I saw there was a new bale of hay outside of his corral.  Two days later mother and I walked over to see him and I noticed how thin he was and how sad his eyes looked.  There were flies around his eyes, his sores and practically everywhere.  His owner does not get rid of his poop instead he dries it out in the sun and then lays it as ground dirt inside his corral.  Is this an acceptable practice?

I try to make sure no trees grow close to the cinder block fence that divides our properties but two years ago I let some mesquite grow in that area to provide some shade for the corral.  At the time his owner had four horses and they had no shade to speak of.  Walter looked desperate and as I got closer I could see a barrel of water was downed and when I asked him if the other barrel had water…it was like he understood…he went over and knocked it down to let me see that there was none.

I came back with a hose, a five gallon bucket as well as my pruning shears and chopped down the mesquite limbs so I could hold the bucket to his face…of course I only put 2 gallons as that is all my back will let me lift.  I filled that bucket 6 or 7 times until he was full.  It made me wonder how long he had been without water and why.  Came back that afternoon and this time he drank about 10 gallons.

What really alarmed me was seeing that he had not been fed in two days and yesterday I saw him eating his own feces!  That is when I called Deputy Mendez but did not get a call back until this afternoon from Sergeant Lopez who informed me that Deputy Mendez was on leave so I had to go into detail once more with him.

This morning I walked over there and saw that they had given him some hay…a small portion I might add for a horse his size.  Noticed that his owner is either on vacation or he no longer works out of town.  This makes me even madder that being in town he does not give a hoot about his horse’s welfare.  People like him should not be allowed to own any kind of animals.

Oh yeah…that bale of hay…well it looks like it is still new.  Think it is just there to fool the sheriff’s that drive-by.  It is a shame that they cannot give animal abuse cases continuity in Val Verde County and offenders go unpunished to continue abusing their animals.  This particular individual has been doing it for years.

Good night.  May there be justice for Walter as well as other animals in the same circumstances as him.