Jun 21 2010

Entrenched

Published by at 2:40 pm under Country Life

The reason I couldn’t park in front of my house when I returned from my botched Santa Rosa jaunt was that Mark is re-doing the wacky water system on the property. Everyone’s cars were parked at the front for several days to make room for the work.

This wouldn’t have been a problem, except for Megan being on crutches. It seemed like a really long way to the car, and we overshopped once, not thinking of how we were going to get the heavy bags down the driveway with Star on a leash and Megan on crutches. Oops. We had to call for reinforcements.

Day One kicked off with a guy cutting a trench more than two feet deep the entire length of the driveway, cutting through roots and miscellaneous pipes and other things. The machine looked kind of like a tractor:

drivewaytrench

And here’s the trench:

driveway2

This is the view from my balcony in the early evening after the whole thing was dug, with Luna keeping an eye on things:

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Filling in the trench once the pipes are in place. That’s Mark in the background, probably wishing it was all over:

driveway4

For most of two days, the water had to be turned off. Fortunately, I still had my winter emergency water supply to drink and flush the toilet with. There’s nothing like having the water turned off to make you actually want to do the dishes.

Everyone else on the property is hooked up to the new and improved water tank. The tank is enclosed, unlike the old one – toplessness is much less desirable in a water tank than it is on a Riviera beach – and is much bigger. So the water should taste better.

I’m currently hooked up to the garden hose (as seen above), so the water smells and tastes like lawn clippings. Lawn clippings are much better to smell than to taste, and since it’s about 80 sunny degrees out, the “cold” water is kind of hot, which is somewhat alienating when brushing your teeth.

Mark is hoping to get me connected to the new tank over the next few days. Apparently there are (surprise!) complications and weirdnesses relating to how the water was or wasn’t connected at my house, James sparing no eccentricity when it came to his own house, too. All through the water project, Mark has been rolling his eyes, shaking his head, and saying, “Yames!”

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2 responses so far

2 Responses to “Entrenched”

  1. Joyon 21 Jun 2010 at 3:43 pm

    I can understand that you will be glad when it will be over!! What a mess..

    jxx

  2. Guyon 22 Jun 2010 at 4:27 am

    Another big job, good thing this all was done with a machine, I would hate to diig this trench with a shovel. A mess, yes but I’m sure you will be glad to have fresh waterr once the work is done.