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| A trench from the corner of the house up through the driveway. Blarg. |
When we got home, we
each had a few things to do. When I turned the handle on one of the
water faucets and got nothing, I didn't panic. I assumed my Love was
just changing the water filter or something and I'd missed a memo.
Not a big deal… until he walked up behind me, took one look at the
not-running water and said “that's not good.”
Obviously,
investigations ensued. Naturally, we checked all the easy stuff first
and worked our way out from there. Long story short, we discovered
(to our substantial alarm) that the morons who built our house
(without planning anything) installed the well alongside the
driveway… right next to shifting ledge rock… which, over time,
shifted into the
well casing, causing a catastrophic collapse well below the surface.
Not
surprisingly, everything got progressively
worse from there. The top of the well was so collapsed in that mice
had made a residence in it, which was disgusting. (Thankfully, the
wall of rock they'd built it on top of kept them and their nest fully
separated from our drinking supply prior to the abrupt loss of
everything.)
Given
that the well casing was destroyed, the well pump couldn't be
recovered and
we were faced with the unwelcome prospect of digging an entirely new
well. Or, more accurately (because
this is a mountain of shale),
pounding a
new well rather
than drilling. Which,
as it turns out, is a nerve-gratingly slow process – particularly
when you have to do it just as the weather is turning from Fall to
gross Winter-is-coming dramatics.
The
well guys brought in a giant,
truck-mounted pounder and
parked it in our driveway alongside the garage, and began the drawn
out process of getting us a new well. This, of course, delighted our
furry babies. Did you know that digging a well creates oodles of MUD?
Mud is the Best. Thing. Ever. according to bored border collies.
(Note: I completely gave up trying to keep the floor more than
passably clean for the duration of this adventure.)
So,
for two full weeks while the well guys worked on that, we had no
water.
Logistically, of course, that meant doing water runs to a neighbor's
every day to fill up five gallon buckets with water for bathing, dish
washing, filling the toilet tanks, and other necessities. Thankfully,
once we got a system down, that was far less stressful than it could
have been. (Thank the Force for empathetic neighbors, a ready stock
of five gallon buckets, and the fact that all the drains/septic/etc.
still worked without interruption!) It just made everything
take longer.
Not
how we planned to spend most of that month, for sure.
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| Fun fact: With access to enough mud, Nenya turns into a direwolf... |
(Rest
of the story tomorrow in Part II.)
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