Still thawing out...

[equusmaximus]

     The light-bulb idea didn't work at all, things were just as frozen in the morning as they were when we started.  When we went to town, I stopped at Jack's shop to see if he had any suggestions as to solving this problem.  He said that what he had done in the past was to put a small heater inside a shop-vac, and then run the hose from the vac's blower down the well shaft.  He said that it generally cleared the problem is about three hours.

I've had this thing running all day, and while it has melted some of the ice build-up, there's still quite a bit to go.  The weather is warming up though, so hopefully this will finally thaw the thing out in the next day or so.  I've been bringing water from town for the horses, and thankfully two of the big water-jugs I have are enough to fill their buckets, and still have some left over for the barn-cats.  We also brought enough water back to finally flush the toilets.  I spent some time in the kitchen washing dishes the really old-fashioned way: boiling water and adding it to a sink of cold water to get something warm enough to wash and rinse dishes in.  It's a bit like camping, but indoors.  :/

I really hope that the well thaws out soon; You never realize how much you rely on working indoor plumbing until you don't have it.  :/