The return of water

So yesterday was awesome. 

We got the washer and dryer hooked up in time for me to get fresh, clean, underwear to wear to work. 

Nice.

The problem was that our water supply line for the RV was hooked up to the cold water supply for the washer. In order to do the eighty-three loads of laundry that needed doing, we had to shut of water to IRV.  The spigots on the outside of the house had an anti-siphon valve on them and the washers and whatnot on those had long ago stopped working. Whenever you turned them on, half the water shot out of the top and the other half went into the hose. This is not a beneficial situation.

But, I had to go to work.  So, we put some water in the tanks while it spewed out of the top of the spigot and I left.

The tanks went dry this morning.

Of course, I could have just unhooked the washer, but no.  No. That would spill water on my nice, unprotected, new floor. And... just no. We worked so hard to get it hooked up.  I needed to fix the outdoor spigots.

So, I had to go under the house.

But it's dark and scary under there. That's where Pennywise will be.

But, I'm an adult. Or, at least I pretend to be when the kids are watching. No kids, I'm not afraid of spiders. Not at all.  Ha ha ha, I'm a big strong grownup.

Unfortunately, a kid was watching.

He thought it would be cool to go under the house. What does he know?

 So, I was brave and went under the house.

And there were spiders.

Lots

and lots,

of spiders.

If you are claustrophobic, which I have been known to be, or arachnaphobic, as I have been, the underside of a country home is not a comfortable place.

But oh well. The kids thinks I'm brave, so I will be.

Mostly.

Yeah, that's about a mile of spiders down to the other side of the house.

There are three spigots I had to change.  One was by the open, rotting end of the house. It was easy to reach, just kneel down and reach under the rotting parts.  Yaaayyy for rot! The other is about two feet down this spider hell tunnel pictured above. Gross, but not too bad.

The other one is all the way on the other side of the house. 

All the way.

Yup, under there.

Were there spiders? Was it dark and cramped?

Sir Wolfenstein the Death Spider of Legend came to visit.

The fitting in question. Or, as I like to call it: Stupid Mother*%&^$.

Max and I crawled under there and removed the spigots to take to Lowes. Sarah and I bought replacements and returned to the house where I put on my coveralls and crawled back under, with Max in tow. I replaced them and we crawled back out.  It was on to the well house to turn the water back on. 

I went back to the double wide, we named it Big Stinky, and checked the spigots. The one by the rot was holding water just fine. The one a few feet from the entry to the crawl space was working fine, but when I walked around to the far side of Big Stinky, I could hear the drip, drip, drip, of a leak right next to the home of Sir Wolfenstein. 

Damnit.

I crawled back under, with Max, and it was leaking.  So I crawled back out to get some more tools. 

I repeated this trip enough times that Max even got bored and I was left to my own devices.  Adjust something, crawl out, turn on the water, crawl back under, curse loudly, crawl back out, turn off the water. 

Sarah would have helped, but she was busy.  We had visitors, it is the 4th of July and all. 

Eventually I cut back the pipe and recreated the whole fitting.  This time I turned on the water and it worked.  I look at this as an opportunity to flood the other house that I avoided.

This time.

So, what was Sarah doing this whole time?  She was interviewing our new employees.

Meet Smokey and Baby Girl. Yeah, they are both in that same carrier.

A friend from Michael and Max's Jiu Jitsu class needed a new home for her two outdoor cats. We just happened to need an outdoor cat or two to reduce the local rodent population. They're hired. Warm beds, clean litter, and all the rodents they can eat.

It didn't hurt that the boys had friends over to play on the 4th either. We dug a firepit, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and lit of some minor fireworks. It was a good day.  Now, I must go and wash the spiders out of my hair. 

Yeah, that's just Michael. He named him Albert

Happy 4th everyone.