Fixing the Well

Jeff and I had quite a full day yesterday. I really don't think I'll be able to do justice to all that happened and all that we did yesterday, but I have to try it anyway. This will be a long post. You have been warned.

On Thursdays we normally do our laundry at Mom's house. But Mom called yesterday morning to tell us that they were having problems with their water, so doing laundry there wouldn't really be an option; we'd have to use the coin-op here at the apartment complex. But she said we were more than welcome to bring our wet clothes over to dry them on the clothesline, to save a bit of money.

The only problem with this scenario is that Jeff and I, never using the coin-op laundry, didn't have any quarters. It was decided that I would walk over to the Albertson's a block away, buy something small, and get a roll of quarters ($10) cash back. So I walked over and checked out the sale-priced meat. I found a package of bacon ends on sale for a little over a dollar per pound, and bought that, knowing Jeff would be very happy when I got home (he loves bacon). When I asked for the ten dollars in quarters, though, I was informed that they use change machines, and I could only have a ten dollar bill. It was all automated and there really wasn't any other option. But she sent me to the nearby fuel station to see if I could get change for the ten there.

So I walked over to the fuel station. She didn't have enough quarters for the whole $10, but was able to give me a five and quarters for the rest. Okay, so I finally had quarters to do our laundry.

I was able to fit all our clothes into two loads and only spend $2 to wash them. I didn't realize that the reason we had so few clothes in the baskets was because Jeff was keeping his dirty clothes in a pile on his side of the bed. Oh well, those will have to be washed next week!

When the clothes were finished in the washing machine, we put them in the car and headed over to Mom's house. Mom and the kids were really excited to show us the pickles and peaches they had been canning, and the huge hole in the back yard. They were digging up pipe. Dad thought the water problem had to do with the pump in the well in the back yard, so Dad and the younger kids had been digging a lot to expose part of the pipe. I thought, "hey, that's cool." But I didn't think it would affect me any more than just causing me to wash my clothes at the apartment laundry room. I was wrong, but didn't realize it until later.

Around lunch time, Jeff reminded me that we had a $25 gift certificate for Olive Garden, and would I like to go for lunch? I quickly asked Mom if she would watch Zaylee and Thomas, and of course she was willing. So Jeff and I hopped in the car and headed off for a child-free Italian food date. The food there never fails to impress me, and this time was no exception. My Zuppa Tuscana was absolutely divine. Who would have thought such a simple soup of swiss chard, potato, and sausage could be so good? The bread sticks were perfect too.

As usual, I had an enormously difficult time choosing what to eat. The waiter pointed out that there is a pasta and sauce meal where you choose your own combination of pasta and sauce, and it's all-you-can-eat. Meaning when you finish the first bowl, they'll bring you another and you can try a variety of pastas and sauces. The only limit is how much you can fit in your stomach!

I ordered the Whole Wheat Linguine with Tomato Basil Caprese. I couldn't even finish my first bowl, there was so much pasta! And I had already had soup and bread sticks. I'm eating the leftovers right now for lunch, actually. This pasta is so delicious! The cool thing is that before my diet, I would have been able to eat all that food and ask for another serving. But my stomach has shrunk enough that I simply couldn't eat anymore. That's good because I probably consumed more calories in that one meal than I normally do in an entire day!

After we got home, Dad enlisted Jeff's help to work on the pipes. Not long after that, he also enlisted the help of Mom and Marie and I. Apparently, there were supposed to be 160 feet of plastic pipe going straight down into the well. At the bottom of all that pipe was the pump. The plan was for the five of us to lift the pipe and get the pump out of the ground so Dad could check it out and see what was wrong with it. Okay, no problem. Or so I thought.

Here is where my story get really difficult for me to tell. My piping vocabulary is so limited, and this experience was so beyond anything I've ever done, I just don't know the words to describe what happened! We were all working so hard and dealing with a very dangerous situation, so no one was taking any pictures, so I can't use that to help me. But here goes.

We lifted 60 feet of corrugated iron pipe straight up out of the ground with pipe wrenches and a whole lot of strength and exertion. See? Okay, that describes what we did, but it really doesn't even begin to cover it! Let me try to describe the weight of this pipe. Most of you know my dad. He has those Popeye forearms that are hugely muscled. He once ripped a flannel shirt he was wearing simply by flexing his arm. He is a big, strong man. He was nervous to even start lifting this pipe. He was straining as we lifted this pipe. Add the fact that Mom and Jeff and I were also all lifting and straining. Had the pipe fallen on any of us, it would have killed us.

We were each gripping this pipe with pipe wrenches - huge metal wrenches that are over a foot in length. We would lift the pipe by all of us simultaneously hefting up our wrenches. Then the one on the top would loosen their wrench and let go of the pipe (leaving the weight on the other three wrenches) and attach at the bottom of the pipe near the hole in the ground. Then we would lift again and the next person would let go and grab the bottom. After lifting twenty feet we got to a pipe connection that Dad would unscrew, while the rest of us held on to the bottom pipe for dear life. Then Dad would remove the top twenty feet of pipe while the rest of us hoped desperately that it would not fall on top of us. We did this three times. Each time the pipe we were lifting got less and less heavy, but it was still a struggle.

I want to add some nice words here for the tree that was right next to the well. At first we thought it would be inconvenient to have that tree there - we would have to lift the pipe straight through the branches and thought that it would get in the way. It turned out to be a blessing. As the pipe rose into the branches, the tree stabilized the pipe. It surely would have fallen had the tree not held it in place. As Dad removed each section of pipe, the tree branches continued to stabilize it, and kept the sections from falling on us. The tree provided shade as we worked hard in the heat of the day. Yes, we were all very glad that the tree was there.

When we were done, Dad was perturbed to find that the pump was located at the bottom of only sixty feet of pipe. The water level was fifty feet under ground, so the pump was only under ten feet of water. He figures that the pump burnt out because it sucked up those ten feet and couldn't run properly anymore. Or something like that. As for the rest of us, we were just glad that there were only sixty feet of corrugated iron pipe to lift. Had there been any more, we would not have been able to pull it up - it would have been far too heavy. Dad was also upset because the pipe wasn't supposed to be iron. The previous owners were supposed to have replaced it with plastic piping, which they obviously didn't do.

We measured the well to find out how deep it went. It was ninety feet deep, so Dad and Jeff went out and bought 80 feet of plastic pipe, plus all the trimmings. Meanwhile, Mom and I were feeling rather sore and painful. If I made a gripping motion with my hands, my knuckles and forearms ached. My legs were weak and a little wobbly when I walked. We had just been through a very exerting experience! We got working on dinner - enchiladas and sauteed snap beans - yummy!

While dinner was cooking, Dad and Jeff did a lot of stuff working on the pipes, figuring stuff out. I don't know what all they were doing, but it had to do with prepping the plastic pipe they had just bought, to go back down into the well. I took to laundry off the line (finally!) and got it all folded, then Mom and I sat on the porch relaxing and talking. It was nice to get to talk with Mom about all sorts of stuff - from my homemaking endeavors to how to teach Zaylee the things she needs to be learning now without sending her off to some preschool, to how overwhelming life can be, to how beyond-words our pipe-lifting experience had been. Plus it was nice to be sitting and resting our muscles!

After dinner we went out to work on the well some more. We needed to put the new pump and pipe down into the well. So Dad and Jeff were lowering the pipe into the hole, while Janelle kept the electrical wire untangled and taped properly to the pipe, and I wiped the dust off the pipe because we were putting it down into the drinking water and wanted it to be clean, and Mom kept the end of the pipe going in the right direction and kept it from scraping against the fence. At the end of the pipe, while we were working on getting it all secured, the security rope (tied to the pump) dropped down into the well. Luckily it was attached to the pipe in several places, so we only had to pull the pipe back up several feet to get the rope up. The security rope is important because it keeps the pump from falling to the bottom of the well in case of mishap while working on the pipe. We were glad we didn't have to pull the pump all the way back up to get the rope!

Anyway, we got the pipe down in the well, and everything hooked up properly, and the well closed off, and the water turned back on. Of course, all our activity had stirred up all the dirt at the bottom of the well so the water that came through the pipes was a lovely brown color. But after the well water settles, there shouldn't be all that sediment anymore. By the time we got the water turned on, it was almost 10:00 at night. Thomas was asleep in the play pen in Mom and Dad's room; Zaylee was asleep in Marie's bed. It was actually cold outside (hallelujah!). We were all tired and sore.

Anyway, after that long and busy and physically exhausting day at Mom and Dad's house, we finally went home and put the kids to bed. Jeff mentioned with a touch of irony that today was supposed to have been his day off (he didn't have work today, obviously).

This morning when I got out of bed I realized that I was sore and aching in muscles I wasn't even aware I had used. I hope nothing in this post has come across as complaining. I'm really not. I think yesterday was awesome! I felt very strong and needed as I was helping to work on this pipe. I felt a strange connection with past generations - generations of families who used to work together all the time to do things, like working on wells, that were necessary for the family's survival. I was awed and amazed at all that we were able to accomplish, and I am glad that I was able to help my family to fix the well that provides their home with life-sustaining water.

But I am determined that when we buy a house, it will be supplied with city water. And that's final!