What happens when it sounds like there is a faucet on and there isn't!

We had yet ANOTHER week with people regurgitating their food this week. I think we are on an eight week roll. This week it was Dallin. On Tuesday I left work to come home for lunch and heard what sounded like a faucet left on. As I followed the sound I noticed that there was water entering the basement through the wall and running along the main water pipe and then dripping onto the floor. By the time I found it, there was a fairly good-sized puddle in the basement. I called Shane, who by some miracle was actually IN town, and he said he would soon be home. I went back to work, and didn't worry much more about it. When I returned home, this is what I saw;
Shane in the 5 foot deep, 10 foot long, 3 foot wide hole. I was just grateful NO ONE FELL IN IT!

Yeah, Mac has his hand wrapped there. He popped his thumb playing Dodge Ball. He was full of all sorts of DRAMA about it - commenting that he was going to have to learn to write with his left hand now, making sure I was going to go in and tell his teacher so she didn't 'freak out', and other things. I told him he would only have to have it wrapped on day then he would be fine - by some miracle; he was!

Back to the water. . .

I guess there was a significantly LARGER puddle when Shane got home. He went outside and began to dig. He found the leak in the water main, then dug a little further so he could cut the pipe and then put on a fitting and new pipe to fix the problem. As he dug further, he found ANOTHER leak. So, he dug further, and found . . . another leak. As he looked down the expanse of yard from where he was standing in his 5 foot deep hole, he finally gave up and called his friend Kevin who just happens to own a backhoe. I think that was a VERY GOOD choice.

As the backhoe dug the hole/trench, we (actually SHANE; I had NOTHING to do with this other than official photographer/laugher-at-the-situation person) found that the water main had been replaced several time before. The first pipe was still in the ground, and impossible to move; who KNOWS what it is attached to! The second pipe was a galvanized pipe that appeared to run into the house. This was a little odd as the pipe that came into the house was copper. As the backhoe ripped the galvanized steel pipe out, copper pipe was found inside. At some point in time the galvanized steel pipe failed and they simply inserted a copper pipe to fix the problem; hence the copper pipe into the house. Unfortunately, not only do copper and steel cause each other to erode they create a battery. From then on everyone made sure they were adequately grounded. In the end, there was a BIG hole/trench and a large pile of dirt on the driveway. Shane spent the next two days repairing the outside line and installing a new set on connections into the house.

We were never without water, as we used a hose from the neighbors house to ours to make things run almost like normal. On Saturday we had full water again. Other than the fact Shane is now sick from 3 days in a 5 foot hole in the front yard in freezing weather, I have discovered several important things. Among them; my children ARE capable of taking showers less than 45 minutes long!

We also spent last night at the Shelley High School Football Semi-Finals. They won, so we get to go watch they try to win a State 3A Championship next Saturday! WOOT! WOOT! Shelley is a town so focused on sports, that they even cancelled all of the Girl's basketball games on Friday. This included 7th grade, 8th grade (Tacey's team), Freshman, JV and Varsity. Just as I say, sports - especially football - are important here. Tacey plays out of town all next week; we'll see how many of those games I can get to!

In the end we have good water, and Shane did an awesome job fixing it, and it is my PERSONAL opinion that we were all getting sick because of the dirt-filled Battery Acid water we were drinking. Maybe I am wrong - as I am NOT a physician. But last time we got sick like this we had a leaking sewer pipe. We fixed it; we got better. I am just sayin'. . . .

Danielle