Soooo... Last Night....

Yes, yes, yesterday was one of hard work.  My friend and I cleared more of the wooded area near the shed, clearing out the undergrowth so we can begin work on the shed expansion.  Though the goats were SUPPOSED to be doing this clearing work for us, they proved to be too slow and tangle prone to suit us, for this particular job.

So, we clipped and cut and stacked and hauled, with sweat rolling off us until our clothes were literally soaked.  In the end, we had cleared the area, and the goats had a huge pile of cuttings to eat (pampered goats...).

Now, remember, I am "working" with only one hand and NOT my "good" hand, but my left hand.  So, while I worked hard, I didn't accomplish a whole lot.  That means, had my friend not been "helping," there would still be 90% of the job to complete.  His back had already been sore from the work the days before, but, determined to make headway with the project, he took the Ibuprofen and worked until it was done.

Pleased with our accomplishments, we came indoors, around 9PM to relax.  I made a little supper and we ate and discussed next plans, etc.  Then he went down to the garage to do something and was gone awhile.  I went to see if there was trouble, and he was looking at a pipe behind the washing machine...a pipe that was wet on the outside.  He'd pulled the washing machine out to further investigate.  It was a mystery why this pipe, the outflow pipe from the washing machine would be wet on the outside, particularly since we had done no laundry in several days.

Well, naturally, we cannot NOT investigate, and as we have been diverting our "gray water" for garden use, we immediately suspected a backup in that system.  We decided to test our theory.  I returned to the kitchen sink in the apartment above the garage, and filled the sink half full with water.  I then pulled the plug, and Joe, downstairs in the garage, watched the action.  He reported all was fine and we decided to try the experiment again, this time with a full sink.

I plugged the sink, turned on the water and ran down to the garage .... for what, I do not recall.  At any rate, and the point of this story, I returned back to the kitchen to find I had OVERFLOWED THE SINK!.  I quickly waded through the water now covering the kitchen floor, and pulled the plug on the sink.  I heard Joe hollering, "OK, OK you can turn it off now!"  I ran downstairs to observe the water failing at the point behind the washing machine, and by this time, water, from the "FLOOD" was also pouring through from multiple places in the garage ceiling!

Back upstairs I ran and started soaking up all the water I could with towels etc.  Joe ran around putting buckets in strategic places in the garage, and soon we had brought the downpour to a few steady, but diminishing drips.

He applied the temporary fix to the gray water diversion failure.

Back upstairs, he then set about the arduous, and might I add, hard on the already aching back, task of vacuuming up all of the water in the carpet...yes, it had escaped the kitchen and was in the living area, and the eaves....

And, so, at about 1PM we sat down on the couch again, fans blowing on the open cabinets and the carpet, exhausted...but needing to wind down from this high energy effort.  We relaxed over a cup of tea and finally called it a night.....

Sooo.... last night, I think we learned a couple of lessons...
1. if the problem appears to be small, and can wait... put it off until the next day, when we will all be thinking clearly
2. don't leave flowing water into a sink unattended (of course, I already KNEW this)
3. a person can never have too many buckets!