The Saga Continues.

You all remember the two very LARGE hole that Neighbor and Mr. T put in the yard looking for the waterline last fall, right? Well I am sad to say they are still there. But the past weekend brought some good fortune and it also brought Mr. T home for the weekend, the first he has not been working since sometime in March. Due to his lack of being home and then his fortune of being here all weekend, the man was VERY  productive.

Saturday 9 am. Mr. T comes down from his sleep in dressed and ready to move. I ask what's with the clothes. He mumbles something about stump grinding...and Neighbor would be here in a few minutes. Um, ok, great! This way we (I) will no longer have to worry about ruining mower by hitting a stump. Wonderful. He wasn't kidding about the speediness of the arrival. Neighbor was here within the hour and the grinding began. In about an hour and a half I believe they took out 12 or 13 stumps. There are still 2 in the pasture and they missed one in the yard, but with such a vast improvement, I am not complaining.

I knew the big holes in the yard were not just bothering me, and I was right. Mr.T had a plan all along. He has been, unknowingly to me, searching for a trencher to rent locally. Neighbor mentioned, in passing, why not check with other neighbor's, like maybe one down the road specifically who runs a geothermal business and uses trenchers daily.

Light bulb. Mr. T hopped in the truck and off he went to introduce himself and rent the trencher. He returned about 20 minutes later. He said that they are very nice and the guy woudl be down in an hour, and when he mentioned "renting it" Geo-man said, "no worries, I will be down in an hour." Me thinks we might just have the very best neighbors ever. Really. Mr. T's plan only included trenching from hole to hole, not from house to pump, he was sure we found the only break in the line, but more on that later.

Geo-man, who's name I do know, arrived and checked all kinds of things out. He and Mr. T walked the property looked at our heating system, and talked about a nearly free geothermal option (but more on that later), He also helped us locate our septic, which is very much appreciated. So after about a half hour of wondering and chatting they got to work and in 15 minutes we had a very long trench from one hole to another. We thanked Geo-man and on his way he went.

About that time Neighbor came back, this time with the tiller on the back of his tractor. He had already roughed up the new garden sight earlier in the week and was back to make it beautiful, which he did. It is absolutely gorgeous and I cannot wait to get out and get dirty and plant things. Sadly we are still a few weeks away from planting things without frost resistance. But those lettuce, swiss chard, spinach, and broccoli WILL go out this week.

All this was done by 2 pm and Mr. T, after a trip to the hardware store, was happily instaling the waterline. I had water in the barn by 5 Saturday evening. It was beautiful, for about 20 seconds, until Mr. T realized the total lack of pressure indicated that there was another break in the line. Back to the digging and working, tomorrow.

Sunday 9 am. I wake from my sleep in and Mr. T greets me at the bottom of the stairs. "I am going to go dig, ok?"  Of course I respond something along the lines of whatever...mumble mumble.  Out he goes. Dug a new trench, BY HAND, from the house to the first hole, punched a hole in the foundation block and ran a new waterline. At this point he was still convinced that the break was in the line from the house to the first hole. MY guess was that it was right at the pump, because it is in the barn and under concrete. After the new line was installed and hooked up. I was proven to be right.
Mr. T came in from trying out the new line and said " I HATE it when you're right." And then trudged back out to dig a hole under the barn. I replied, " I usually LOVE it when I am right, but in this case I HATE it too! I love you! You're the greatest!"

One more hole later and a new connection under the pump and VOILA! We have running water in the barn with a frost free hydrant! Thrilled! Water, and water pressure and conveniently located. Mr. T also put a T in the line so we can install another hydrant out of the barn for the garden and outdoor duck pen. I am still going to be carrying buckets to water the ducks in the winter, BUT I will only be carrying them 20 or 30 feet not 200. And I will be carrying them through the barn, and NOT 2+ feet of snow. Huzzah! I am VERY happy!

I think Neighbor's skid steer is going magically appear this afternoon and fill in ALL the holes.Again, YAY! No more fighting to keep little children out of the holes. And maybe if we are very lucky, we will also get the house graded today, probably not going to happen, but one can hope. Grading the house and building the new duck house were actually on the docket for last weekend, but the skid steer had other obligations so we rolled with and it ended up being better than expected.

If we can just find someone with a jackhammer to get rid of these pesky front steps we will be golden...of course then we HAVE to build the deck... more on these things later.