One of our resident Black Snakes has been sniffing around the garage door and we keep chasing it away. Don’t want to open the car door and find this guy curled up in the driver’s seat.
Category Archives: Home
New septic tank
After 35 years our septic tank developed a leak. (In my book, there’s no such thing as a small septic tank leak. Any odor is unacceptable.) Two years ago we had our tank pumped and an aerator installed. We’d had a little odor and hoped that would fix the problem.
It did until a few months ago when the smell returned. The company we used found a leak in our aging concrete tank and tried to patch it. Worked for a while …then it didn’t. Today we had a new tank installed.
Living “in the country” means a big old propane tank, a very expensive water well, and a septic system. There’s no where I’d rather be.
Spring 4.10.23
Autumn 2022
Books and a place to read them
Perfect October Day
Surounded by trees, we don’t get spectacular sunrises and sunsets. We just don’t get much of a horizon. But we do have a tiny vista, looking down our road to the hills just on the other side of the Missouri River. It’s so quiet we can hear approaching vehicles — few and far between if you don’t count neighbors — from far down the hill.
When the sun does shine through the trees in the late afternoon, we get some flattering light. My friend John says this was taken using the Old Man filter. I am much happier than I look. Ditto for Riley.
Black-eyed Susans
New well: Cleaning up
The new well is in and today was devoted to decommissioning the old well. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources has guidelines on this but the goal seems to be preventing contamination.
This involved pouring twenty bags of something called Envrioplug down the well. Moisture (and a little time) turns this into a hard clay-like substance that plugs the well until the end of time. After that it was Bobcat work, filling in the trench that held the pipes feeding water from the new well to a pressure tank in our basement…
…and tidying up the surrounding area.
Invisible Fence
For many years we’ve had an Invisible Fence surrounding our yard (and a bit more). We managed to cut that wire while digging the new well. Today Edward came out to repair the fence so it was a good time to reposition a little to avoid similar issues in the future. Edward’s trenching gizmo made quick work of it.
New well operational
I don’t recall being around when our old well was dug, almost 30 years ago. So I had no idea what the pump looked like until this morning. This is called a “submersible pump” and it seems pretty amazing something could work under wafter that long with very few problems. Lots of videos on this topic.
In the images below Joe Greene, one of our well guys, is wiring the pump to our electric. The red faucet is what Barb uses to water her flower beds in that part of the property.
The PVC pipe on the ground in the image below is what brings the water up and into the pressure tank in our basement. I counted 19 twenty-one foot sections which gets our pump down 400 feet.
