Aaaack!!!!!

This is what the back yard looked like this morning. Quiet, serene, green..... Somehow, my ever-wise father made the distressing discovery that there was a water pipe leak in all this pristine serenity. Apparently it was quite squishy when he walked out to the garden. I'm sure I would not have thought anything of it, since it HAS been raining daily all week.

I was informed at 8am today that if I wanted a shower, it had to be now, because the water was going to be shut off for an unknown period of time. So I hurried. Then I filled the tub with water for toilet flushing. Mom had filled a few pitchers for drinking as well. We got the water shut off and a call into the plumber. Then we waited.

There is a marvelous plumber here. He rescheduled his afternoon so he could come here and fix it for us. Thank goodness!

This was the yard around 3pm today. Bruce, the marvelous man in the tractor said yep, there is a leak, and he dug a bit to find the pipe. That gray circular thing there is the well. No city water for us! Nope, nothing but Arkansas' finest well water comes into this house. The leak was in that line from the pump to the house.

Bruce is the best. Here he hopped out and grabbed a huge worm for the kids. Unfortunately, he handed it to the one who actually is a bit squeamish. Marian or Callie would have been thrilled, but Joshua was not. Anyway, we'd hoped to just patch the pipe, but Bruce said it had already been patched.... with a radiator hose. So the whole thing needed to be dug up and replaced. Fun for all but the pocket-book!

Bruce was wonderful. He maneuvered his tractor around and kept an eye out on the kids, who dashed all over, getting in the way and checking out everything. And the dug dirt line got bigger and longer and deeper.

Finally the ditch reached the house line. Whew! Then it was on to removing old pipe and replacing it. He did that really fast too.

And this is what the children did while Bruce was working. I told them to stay out of the ditch, but Bruce said it was okay, so they had a fantastic time rooting around in there.

Here we have Dad and Bruce, working on the new pipes. The kids helped dump dirt back in after the pipe was down. Then Bruce and the tractor filled in the rest.

Here is what the back yard looked like at dinnertime tonight. I think it will get a bit smoother before its all done, but the grass will still have to regrow. On the plus side, we were only without water from about 9-5 today! Whoo-hoo! And it was such an exciting adventure. It also got the kids out and having a good time for the afternoon. Yay for Bruce!