A Close Call and Things are Looking Up

This morning I was up before 6am to get the morning chores done before the plumbers arrived to work on the septic lines.  Actually, the goal was to get the chores done so I could get back into the house and have my coffee before they told me I couldn't run water.  Coffee is the focus of my morning.  As the sign in my kitchen says:

The plumbers arrived at 7 am and got to work digging in my garden.  This is what it looked like before their arrival:

Looking out

Looking in

I went back down to the barn at 7:30 to ride Jackson.  While I was tacking him up, I saw a coyote running up the road.  Then I saw the neighbor's dog, Suzie, in hot pursuit.  Suzie chased the coyote up the road, around the corner, and to the top of the hill.  Good girl!  Then I got worried, Suzie lives on the property next to us and the goat pen is right up against the fence on our shared property line.  So if Suzie was chasing the coyote, that means she saw the coyote from her home turf, and the coyote was probably scoping out the goats.

I hopped on Jackson and we rode up the road to the property line.  I could see the goats, all five of them, racing around like they were possessed.  They were running from one end of their area to other, bounding and bouncing off of boulders as they went.  Bella and Bear yelled at me from the top of the biggest boulder as I rode by. 

Jackson and I went back to our property, up the back driveway, around the barn and into the arena.  It was hot and slightly humid but Jackson was a trooper.  I'm trying to build our fitness - his muscle strength and my cardiovascular - with sets of trot work.  Today we did 8 minutes, short break, 8 minutes, short break, 6 minutes.  The first set I focused on letting him stretch and warm up.  I asked him to lift his back and he got there but it took most of the eight minutes.  The second set, he was working in a very nice frame so we worked on transitions within trot, some leg yield and 10m circles to help with his balance, and a little bit of canter to keep us happy and forward thinking.  The last set I planned to trot for four minutes but he was going so nicely that we kept going for six.  We worked on sitting trot, transitions from my seat, and some canter.  We were both sweaty when we finished.  I iced his hocks while giving him a liniment rub down, then washed his tail and put him back in his stall.

Meanwhile, the plumbers had made a run for supplies (including a jackhammer to break out my beautiful brick path).  There were two guys and one of them was up to his armpits digging the hole.  They finally found the pipe.  I asked the digging guy if I could take his picture in the hole and he said okay but he wouldn't show his face.  He was embarrassed at being dirty.  Seriously!  Like anybody stays clean for more than five minutes up here.

At 2 pm, when the temperature had reached 93F, they cut out the sewer pipe connecting to the septic tank and found the problem.  The pipe had a good fall going to the tank, but then it bent at the connection, and there was a big crack in the coupling.  The head plumber knocked on the door and asked me to take a picture of it for my blog.  He also asked me to put a picture up of the back of his teeshirt.  I'm happy to oblige.  They did an awesome job for a fair price.

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Mission accomplished.  "All" they had left to do was install the new pipe, fill in the hole, and install risers on the septic tanks so we can find them next time we need to have the tanks pumped out.  My garden looked like this: 

 I expect that the artichoke plant is not going to survive this assault to its root system.  If that's the biggest collateral damage, I'll be pleased. 

Backlogged Again

Somebody please shoot me.

Last night as we were headed to bed, Brett noticed a funny sound in the mud room bathroom.  He tried to flush the toilet.  No go.  He checked the cleanouts and they were all full of water again.

So, it was back to the barn for toilet use and back in the pool for a shower.  Needless to say, neither of us slept. 

We were down at the barn for morning chores (and toilet use) by 6 am.  We took advantage of the early cool morning air and rode the horses around the ranch on the bridle paths before breakfast.  Jackson was happy to be out and made it the whole way without coming up lame or picking up a stone.  Success!  I hosed him off so he would be clean for Liz who came to do his acupressure and muscle work at 9:30.

I called the plumber who came up two days ago, but he didn't return our call.  Maybe he doesn't work on Saturdays.  Maybe he didn't want to deal with our wierd plumbing.  Fortunately, Brett found a different plumber who came up this afternoon.

The guys that came up this afternoon were goooooood.  They cleared the lines in half the time, or less, than its taken anyone else.

Then they ran a camera through the line to see where the hang up was. If you've ever had a horse scoped for ulcers, you can easily picture this.  There was a camera on the end of a long line, connected to a video screen.

After verifying that the camera was working, he fed it down into the line and we watched it's progress on the screen.

Everything went smoothly until the camera got about four feet from the septic tank.  The pipe was full of water there and not draining. 












Four feet from the septic tank is right under the brick pathway through my vegetable garden.  Fortunately, it is not under any of the raised planters.  It will be relatively easy and not excessively disruptive to dig under the pathway (the bricks are just set in the dirt, no cement), fix the pipe, install a two-way cleanout, install risers on the septic tanks, and close it all back up. 

They will be back on Monday to do the job. 

It's only money, right?  (cough, hack, sputter)

Septic Celebration

What is the proper way to celebrate getting your septic system working again?  Champagne?  Cartwheels?  Dancing? 

After a week, yes, a WEEK of using the barn toilet and jumping in the pool instead of the shower, we are finally able to use the house toilets.  No more laying awake at 2 am trying to decide just how badly I need to go, if I can wait till morning, or if I need to hike down to the barn. 

It wasn't easy.  As you may recall (or maybe conveniently forgot which would be my choice), last Thursday we woke in the middle of the night to water gushing out of the shower and covering the bathroom floor.  Friday morning Brett tried to find the septic tank.  We were sure it was full and backing up into the house.  He couldn't find it before leaving to visit his daughter in Colorado for three days.

I spent the weekend in the barn.

Monday he resumed digging around, trying to find the tank.  No luck.  I had carpet cleaners come in the afternoon.  Our bedroom carpet was shampooed and deodorized.   Fortunately, we had been able to stop the flow of water with the bathroom area rug so we didn't have to replace the bedroom carpet.  Cleaning did the trick.  The bathroom area rug went into the dumpster -- all 6x9 soggy feet of it.

Tuesday, the septic company didn't show.  Brett called and they said they had been tied up on another job and would be up by noon on Wednesday.

Wednesday noon: no septic truck.  1pm, 2pm, --nothing.  Brett called and the company informed him that they had decided they didn't want to drive up the mountain.  Thanks for telling us.  Brett called another company.  They arrived a few hours later.

It took them awhile to find the tank, but they finally did.

Part of it was under the gravel.  Part of it was under the walkway.  Brett broke out that part of the orchard walkway.  He got his exercise swinging a sledge hammer.

 

And, voila!  There was the tank.  They took off the lid (smelled wonderful as you can imagine) and pumped it out.

But, it didn't fix the problem.  Oh, great.  The septic pumping guys had a snake so they tried to find the clog.  Their snake went in about 15 feet and wouldn't go any further.  They said it felt like the pipe turned 90 degrees and the snake couldn't make the bend.  They said they would come up this morning and try jetting it out. 

They came up.  Jetting didn't work.  They suggested we call a plumber.

We didn't want to call the plumber that put the pipes in when the house was built because we have had constant issues with his work.  Every time we have something fixed, we get comments about the shoddy way the plumbing was done initially.  I got a referral to someone from a neighbor and he came up this afternoon. 

After two hours, he fixed it.  Broke the clog loose.  I could hear the water rushing into the septic tank (which is thankfully closed again).  I could have hugged him.  Instead I took him to the barn and got him a soda of his choice (Cactus Cooler).  Heck, he could have taken a case! 

I am giddy with happiness.  And, seriously, we might have champagne tonight.

Up at 3:00 am and Not Happy About It

Brett and were awakened at 3:00 am by the sound of gurgling coming from the bathroom.  Either The Blob was coming out of our toilet or something worse.  Brett, being a sweet husband, got up to take a look.  Swearing, loud swearing, followed.  The kind where you hop out of bed faster than you thought your old bones were capable of and rush to see what's going on. 

I saw water pouring over the shower step.  Not dripping or a trickle.  It was a torrent.  Niagara Falls in our bathroom.  We immediately rolled up the braided area rug and tried to block the flow of water onto the bedroom carpet.  I grabbed every towel in the house. 


Brett went to the garage and discovered that the water softener was "regenerating" -- purging itself.  Normally, the water would flow from the unit straight into the septic tank.  The septic tank wasn't accepting deposits.  Brett opened a release valve/pipe in the garden and water gushed out.  ...and stopped gushing in our bathroom.  Phew!  That just left a huge mess to clean up.  The water covering the floor was an inch deep and the smell wasn't exactly pleasant.

Brett went down to the barn and got the shop vac.  He vacuumed up the standing water while I worked on drawing water out of the carpet with towels.  (I did get permission from him to put up the following picture.  This is 3:00am flooded bathroom attire - he did have his skivies on, I swear).

 

We finished cleaning up as much as we could and tried to go back to sleep but couldn't.  It was starting to get light outside, Brett was thinking about the septic tank, and I was thinking about washing all those towels - and the smell...  We gave up and got back out of bed.  We agreed that the septic tank needs to be emptied and that we didn't want to pay an emergency or week-end call out fee so we'll schedule that for next week.

This afternoon, Brett left for Colorado to visit his daughter.  How convenient for him; he gets access to working facilities.  Actually, he wanted to stay home and suffer with me but I told him to go.  We have a toilet in the barn, we have a washing machine in the barn, and we have a pool for bathing.  And its summer so jumping in the pool is not a big sacrifice (especially if timed to occur during a hot flash). 

Before we can have the septic emptied, we have to find the tank.  This is a problem.  We've looked for it before.  When we built the house, nine years ago, the septic tank location was moved quite a few times.  The plans don't agree on its location.  We know it is somewhere on the east side of the house but is it under the gravel parking area, my garden, the orchard, or the lawn?  Brett said he would dig around and see if he could find it before leaving for the airport.

Bella felt he needed moral support so she jumped over the goat fence to join him. 

I am hoping for a quiet night tonight.