Today is the Winter Solstice here in Topeka as it in most of the United States. It is 11:30 pm here, so if you leave in the Eastern Time Zone, it isn’t officially until 12:30 am tomorrow morning.

It snowed for the first time here in Topeka last night. Hardly any at all, but it still qualifies as snow. The pan handle of Oklahoma and Texas got whacked with a dumping of snow.

Yesterday it rained most of the day. I’ve actually ridden inside for two days in a row. Amazing. I went by an old house I own yesterday to get something out of the van over there and heard a weird noise coming from inside. I went inside and the PVC pipe connected to the sump pump had broken and it was flooded, with the sump pump spraying water all over the basement.

The water was about a foot deep. So I went around town to collect the proper tools to fix the problem. I went over to the building that I’d roofed a couple years ago and decided to check on the sump pumps in the basement there. It wasn’t flooded, but one of the sump pumps wasn’t even connected. Turns out it was clogged up with something a month ago and my brother disconnected it and fixed it, but never reinstalled it. So, I went back to the house and did a make shift fix of connnecting some PVC together and sticking it out the basement window.

It amazed me how long it took to pump all the water out. I bet it thrilled the neighbors having a pond between our yards. It is partially their fault. They bought 15 feet of land from the people that used to own my house and they regraded that part, so there is a low spot between the houses that doesn’t drain. I really need to address the issue on a major basis sometime, but not now.

I can’t believe how zapped I got from standing around in cold water for such a short time. It was mainly my feet and hands, as usually. I had on waterproof boots and two pairs of Smartwool socks, but that didn’t do it. I feel like I got ran over by a truck today. No wonder we all get so beat from racing cross in the winter when it is wet. It doesn’t seem to affect the Belgium guys like that so much. They are like the energizer bunnies, especially over the holidays, racing nearly everyday. I don’t get it.

It is going to be in the mid 40’s today and sunny here, so I’m riding outside again.

I'm a little lucky I went by the house. I don't go by that often. It would have been a different job if the pump was submerged.

The water was pretty cold and deep.

This was after only half the water was pumped out.

The house is great. Really old, with 6 inch tongue and groove floors. The bathroom was an addition on the back, since there wasn’t any indoor plumbing when it was built.