Tag: resourceful

I love it when stuff like this happens

A few years ago, in Buenos Aires, our friend visiting from New York couldn’t believe the little things people were selling on buses, everywhere. “Who would buy a ball point pen?” she wondered. “I just did,” I replied, “I forgot to bring one.”

So couple years later in Manhattan, she emptied her “excess pen” drawer and we returned to Uruguay with a plastic bag full of pens.

Recently, though, that one from Buenos Aires has been my favorite, so I was slightly saddened to throw it in the trash when it ran dry (I might have replaced the guts, but that didn’t seem possible.) Until I realized: WAIT! That spring! Exactly what I’ve been look for to keep our water filter tube from crimping!

pen-spring

Thank you, pen from Buenos Aires!

 

 

Resourcefulness +1

We’re still drawing water from the well with a rope, which gets completely twisted. Our ‘everything’ guy Martín suggested a metal thingie that allows it to rotate, didn’t like the way I installed it, and did it a different way, with a knot that left the bucket at the bottom of the well in the middle of my watering routine today.

He made a hook out of thin metal construction rod and started fishing. (He’s a fisherman.)

No luck. I was heading home for lunch; said I’d bring back a strong flashlight and another bucket so they could continue work in the meantime, since brickwork requires water.

Two doors down, on a whim, I asked my neighbor if by chance he had a strong flashlight. No, but he had a bucket I could borrow. That would definitely save time. Being only 100 meters away, I left the car and walked back with the bucket.

fish hook

In the few minutes of my absence, Martín had fashioned a treble hook, fished out two buckets from the bottom of the well, and assured me there was a third, which he left for now. Attached a bucket to the rope in place of the hook, and went back to work.