March Madness

Here it is mid June, and I am posting about last March's disaster. Well, in truth I have had little if any time to sit and blog with the Rotary year escalating to a crescendo at our District Conference last month. The conference was a big success, so all of the attention seems worthwhile, but I thought I would bring you up to speed on some of my more interesting adventures in the last several months.

It seemed like a normal early spring morning. I gradually came to consciousness to the sounds of chirping birds out in the yard. I noticed another sound as well. It was the low frequency "thrumming" of our well pump through the water pipes. No big deal, but who was running water? Kim was asleep next to me, but perhaps she just returned from using the toilet? The sound stopped. I am not sure why I was so attuned to this noise, but I listened intently to be sure it didn't return. Thrum, thrum, thrum, there it started again! The pump was definitely running for no apparent reason...not a good sign!

I got out of bed, put my bathrobe on and peered out the bedroom door at the back lawn. I could see a couple of puddles on the lawn where none should be, so I headed out barefoot to investigate. Indeed, the lawn was saturated with water. The sprinklers had not been turned on for the season, so my problem it seemed was the main line delivering water to the house from the pump. I knew where the line ran (a straight line between the outlet on the pump, and the shutoff valve at the house) so, still in my robe, I began looking for clues as to where the leak was. Somewhere in the roughly 100 feet between the house and the pump house was a break. Since I didn't want to dig the entire line up, I began some detective work to locate (or at least get close to) the leak.

The lawn has a pretty good slope down from the pump house (high side) towards the house. I figured that since water doesn't usually run up hill that I would find the highest point of wetness, and start digging there. As I surveyed the swamp, I noticed that a portion of the lawn seemed to be higher than I remembered it. A small hill seemed to be where I was sure it had not been before. I should know, after hundreds of lawn mowings over the years. As I walked over to investigate, the "hill" gave way to my weight. It was like a giant water bed! The leak had lifted the sod up about 4 to 6 inches! However, this "Water balloon" was off the line of the pipe, so there was no sense digging there.

After stretching a line to better locate the pipe I selected a place to begin my excavation. To shorten this epic blog, I eventually found the leak after digging a trench about 12 feet long and 3 feet deep.

The line runs from the pump house to the house. I had
to cut and remove all of the sod before digging.

 

The final trench was around 10 feet long and 3 feet deep.
It was a muddy mess!

It was a ton of work! First I had to cut the sod (very heavy) and move it out of the way. Then Kim and I dug in the mud. It was very heavy, and sticky. We shoveled it into a wheel barrow and dumped it off the lawn.

After working several hours, I was exhausted, and Kim decided to call for help while I went to the hardware store to purchase repair supplies before they closed. I also rented a pump to drain the hole so we could find and repair the pipe. She called a young man named Cody Taylor who helped us on a hay stacking job previously to come and help. He arrived about the time I returned from town. By now it was around 5:00 pm. 

Progress picked up with Cody's added energy. We found the break, an old joint had given way, and cut out the broken piece. We lay side by side on our stomachs in the mud reaching down into the hole while Kim ran the pump to keep most of the water out of the hole. It was about this time that Cody "nicked" our 220 volt electrical line that was buried beside the water pipe with the saw we were using to cut out the broken piece of pipe. We had to turn the power off at the breaker because Cody got zapped a few times. Luckily he wasn't hurt!

Cody's arrival revived our efforts!

Cody dove right in to the work! The green pipe is the pump
suction hose.

That's me handing Cody my Swiss Army knife. No job to big!

You can see how deep the trench was!

We finished up just before dark. it was a grueling day, started about 7:30 in the morning, and finished about 6:30 or 7:00 pm. After we got the water back on, we used the hose to clean each other off. I was bushed. However, my work wasn't done! After we turned the water on, a lot of mud and sediment was in the line. This of course went directly into the house and plugged up three toilets and two faucets. I had to disassemble these and clean them out thoroughly. This took me about another hour! At least it was inside work.

Our final repair! Notice the dark shadow underwater just below
the pipe. This is the electrical line to the pump that Cody "Nicked".

Happy campers to be finished working in the mud!

Cody wears his mud well!

I wasn't quite finished. Remember the "nicked" electrical line to the pump house? I left the hole open for about a month so it would dry out. Finally, the wire was just above the water level. This time I used a Shop Vac to suck the small amount of water out, and I repaired the insulation on the line. Of course, I then had to fill the hole, and replace the sod. Today you can't tell the "Panama Canal" was ever there!

I filled the hole with the clay material we removed,
then brought in some "good dirt" from the manure
pile and tamped it all down.

The sod was very hard and dry, like bricks when I replaced it
about a month later. I literally had to use a mallet to get it to fit!

So, that's my story....stay tuned for more "Back Blogs"!

That's All!

New Friends en Espana

I awoke this morning to cooing pigeons, barking dogs and crowing roosters in the Andalusian town of La Roda. I think the dogs woke me, but as I lay there half asleep I was visited by a Spanish house fly. It was odd because I have been hassled by many American house flies while in that edge world between sleep and wakefulness, and they usually do a great job of irritating you to wakefulness. Not this time.

The fly landed on my bare arm, and I shook it expecting its inevitable return. It was strange because the fly had the courtesy not to return. For almost a minute I waited, but it had decided to go elsewhere and leave this foreigner alone. So I have decided that Spanish flies are quite civilized, and much less irritating than their American counterparts.

Perhaps this is the reason that window screens seem non-existent here. The louvered windows of my daughter's new house would serve to exclude large birds, but not much else. I am so paranoid about keeping our screens closed up tight at home because the house would instantly fill with buzzing insects (especially at night) that I felt a little uneasy seeing no way to keep the little buggers out of the house while letting the cool evening air in. But now I see that these are a different breed of fly.

As I lay there in bed contemplating all of this with the morning light streaming in the windows, I remembered the legendary status that "Spanish Flies" had when I was a teenager. Legend among the virgin young boys in the neighborhood was that this was a powerful aphrodisiac, and if taken by a girl, there would be no way to protect yourself (who would want to?) from her sexual advances.

Now at age 60, I have a different view. Here in Spain it seems that the fly and humans have come to a mutual detente. Perhaps they even take siesta with the rest of the population?

That's All!