The Great Flood

It was time to take down our old fence that has been falling over. Jeff's parents came to town last week, and offered to help get the process going.

On Friday, they were able to pull down most of the fence rails and slats. We thought that the fence was falling down because of the tree pushing against it. We were wrong. The tree wasn't helping matters, but once the rails were gone, the posts were easily broken off just by pulling on them. They had been devoured by termites -- in fact, Jackson was able to see real-live termites in action. We were able to salvage a couple of them that remained intact without any damage. The posts that did break though left behind some cement footings that needed to be removed.

On Saturday we rented a jackhammer. Jeff, his father, and brother Matt, set to work on getting rid of one of the post footings. At 2pm as Matt was packing up to leave, Jeff hit our water main with the jackhammer. Guess which one was stronger?

He called the water company to come shut off the water that was rapidly filling the sidewalk, holes and garden. They arrived an hour and a half later. Meanwhile Jeff and his dad had to dam up the water away from the valve, and pump and bail water to find it.

It took a few hours to clear enough water to find the break in the pipe, and a few more hours to fix it. Jeff found Zach at Home Depot and brought him home to help (He was on the corner with the other day laborers looking to make a buck). Thanks for the loan Courtney! I'm sure they were at Home Depot getting supplies for their own projects!

Fortunately, Jeff is as good at fixing disasters as he is at causing them. (Lots of practice with both.) Fixing the main meant soldering four different joints in a copper pipe in a dark deep hole full of tree roots without passing out from inhaling the propane fumes. By 9:45 pm they had the pipe fixed, and were waiting to have the water turned on to see if it "worked." At 10:30pm the water company finally showed up to turn it back on. The water guys were impressed with the soldering and when Jeff said he did it, the guy said, "If it didn't work, you'd have said the other guy did it." So after 8 hours without running water and kneeling in the mud, the guys were VERY ready for showers. And after a day of work, we had exactly two holes, one of which had to be moved because of the water pipe underneath.

Mikey and Jackson were very excited about the "great flood" and wanted to be involved. There was mud everywhere, and it was very tempting. They were very curious about how a toilet can be flushed with a bucket of hot tub water. And, of course, they don't worry too much about not being able to wash their hands.