So yesterday I was off to get a second cup of coffee and today here I am on my first, and thank God, on the day the "series of unexpected incidents" perfected, all that happened was that with Sun sextile Pluto, I got the paint brush out started changing the many picture frames I've been buying lately to black - nice and appropriate for the Lord of Darkness.
Anyway, there I was on a Sunday afternoon with the water turned off and no more drips coming into the bucket, and lo and behold, when I turned the kitchen taps on to do some dishes, nothing came out! Once again Pioneer woman sprung to the rescue and, armed with a couple of empty plastic gallon water containers, made her way up to the well house, where she used the outside spigot (or is a ballcock?) to do a Jack and Jill, feeling very fortunate she had just taken a shower.
Next morning, she called T***y R, the plumber who had installed the plumbing in the first place, eleven years ago, and the morning after that, Tuesday, he returned her call and was at the house in thirty minutes. Then followed a very messy scene during which he got up on a step-stool and began to pull down about twelve square feet of sodden ceiling and a yard or two of dripping insulation while Pioneer Woman stood by stuffing it all into a series of trash bags and dragging them out on to the back patio.
I then, reverting to the first person, did a couple of sprints up to the well-house and back turning the water on and off while T***y looked up at the exposed copper tubing to see if anything was making a difference. It wasn't. As far as T could guess, the leak was the result of something called electrolysis, two of the pipes coming in contact with each other and causing a minute honeycomb effect of tiny pin holes. According to him, the leak had been going on for months, building up a larger and larger pool of
water which had waited till Sunday to break through. No argument from me.
Next morning, T the Younger and his helper appeared and replaced the piping, telling me one of my neighbors was an expert sheet-rocker and would probably be willing to do the job of patching up the ceiling for me. Drawing a veil over the "When Father Papered the Parlour" aspect of the repair job, it was completed in a week or so, and any day now I'll have scraped the last piece of plaster off the French doors.
Against my better judgment, I then asked not-so-expert-at-all as it had turned out sheet-rocking neighbor if he would loosen the well-house water filter container for me, as I'd been trying unsuccessfully to do it myself for months. It's a ridged circular plastic thingie that's suspended off the pipe that goes from the water softener to the main water supply (or something like that), and you turn it by putting a tennis racket shaped thing without the strings onto it from underneath and moving it ridge by ridge. At least you do if you're not me.
And once again, to be continued. It's very long. And mostly boring.
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