When everyone in Westeros started talking about winter’s imminent arrival, I highly doubt it was any of the Starks who contemplated things like water hydrants or how they were going to get water to their livestock. I haven’t read the books beyond the first one (sorry, not my style) and we don’t have HBO to watch Game of Thrones so if this discussion actually happened, I’m surprised. Because the one type of magic that isn’t written about in stories is how even when weather is at its worst, you still have to feed and water the livestock. And in my case, it’s the horses I worry about.
I remember reading a Mercedes Lackey book, maybe one of Mags’ series, about a major blizzard that hit Haven, the capital of Valdemar. Fire starting in Valdemar is often mentioned as being just enough to light a match, which frankly would be handy if you could keep a small stove going next to the hydrants so they didn’t freeze in the Companion’s barn, for example. Here, like in most fantasy mileus I would guess, when the weather occasionally got cold enough to freeze our hydrant (which alas, because of it’s age tends to freeze anytime it’s not sunny and under 32 degrees Farenheit), we hauled buckets of water from the house. In fantasy books, they’d probably haul water from the nearest unfrozen water source.
This year, we found a little magic. Or rather, I found a gadget (through a Facebook ad!) that has a temperature sensor in it and as long as the faucet is open, it will release just enough water to keep the pipe from freezing. Our most recent cold snap, which we’re in the middle of thanks to Winter Storm Kingston, is the second time I’ve used it, and I was much relieved today that I had a functioning water hydrant, so it was just a matter of bringing the hoses out of the house where I’d been keeping them warm and thawed, and hooking them up to top off water troughs. A lot easier than hauling 10-20 buckets (5 gallon) of water.
But today, while doing this chore and thinking to myself how “magical” it was that we didn’t have to haul buckets, I was thinking about the little bits of magic that probably exist in our fantasy worlds that we don’t read about or as authors we don’t write into existence that make people’s lives easier.
If you’re interested in the Freeze Miser here’s the link: https://www.freezemiser.com/. This isn’t an affiliate link or anything, just sharing in case it’s helpful to you too!
