Having finished up a small job of taping drywall joints yesterday, I carried my tools and mud tray outside to give them a good cleaning. A fine hard spray from a garden hose does a right fine job of cleaning the compound out of all the little corners and crevices. I expected that within a very short while I would have a kit of fine clean tools.

I turned on the faucet and directed the nozzle toward the taping knife. Nothing came out of the hose. A sudden suspicion led me to give one of the loops a nudge. It was so stiff it hardly budged. When I gripped it with both hands and tried to bend a slight vee I heard a cracking sound. Yep, that hose wuz froze!

So, instead of the quick easy cleaning job I expected courtesy of the hose and faucet, I ended up pursuing my goals via a small cleaning brush and a bucket of warm water. It took a few minutes longer but used only one-and-a-half gallons of water. And, with the brush, I was actually able to clean off some old spots of dried drywall mud that previous hosings had failed to remove.

Sometimes we are forced to find a better way because the usual isn’t available to us. Might be that’s God’s way of taking us to a better result than the easier way would have brought us.

H. Arnett
12/5/18