I actually had plans for a Monday morning post. You see, I'm supposed to be at the Grand Canyon teaching a class on our facility maintenance program. I was going to write a post up with some very belated thank yous.
It doesn't always go as planned.
Saturday morning I headed out to my Mom's to feed the horses. As I was walking around I kept hearing the sound of running water, but couldn't figure out why. That's when I discovered this:
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| Insert bad words here. |
This was bad. Mom's house water comes from a well. Her holding tank had caved in, probably due to age and the recent flooding we've had. After a quick panicky moment I called a very wonderful neighbor and explained the situation. Aaron and I do not have the equipment to deal with what had happened - we needed help. The neighbor came over, took a look, and summed it up. "It's gotta come out." Easier said then done - this tank is under a wooden deck, as well as any access by equipment was hindered by a 40 year old pine that died over the summer.
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| My heroes and neighbors - Shawn, Roger, Wally and Tristan |
Seriously, if you don't know your neighbors - go out and introduce yourselves. This would have been a total nightmare if they hadn't stepped in.
The first step was getting rid of the tree.
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| I held my breath here. |
Next was the porch. The guys had the idea of cutting it away in one piece and hopefully reinstalling it when the new tank was dropped in. The porch needed replacing anyway - I wasn't sorry to see it go.
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| Heave! |
We got our first clear glimpse of the hole. With all the activity it had caved in a little more.
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| I also found out this weekend I have a phobia to water filled holes in the ground. |
After capping the water and pulling the electrics off the tank, we started to dig into the tank.
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| This had to happen - when you are dealing with this much water, a gusher has to occur. |
We stopped after exposing the tank. The dirt kept caving in and there were some concerns that the A/C unit would drop into the hole. That board is keeping the unit from falling in.
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| In which we discover the root of the problem, or at least part of the cause. |
This was a natural stopping point on Saturday. We dropped a pump into the tank and started to suck the remaining water out.
Sunday morning was beautiful...
Our goal today was to get the old tank out and dig the hole down. We couldn't do anything to purchase a new tank till today (Monday).
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| The tank in the horse corral. |
Those are my Friesian girls in the back ground. They didn't care what was happening. Take the tree down? Not interesting. Drop what was left of a 2500 gallon steel tank in the pen? Boring...
Today I'm tank shopping - not as cool as it sounds. We are estimating it will take us a couple of days to get this completed. I saw very little of my pups this weekend, but spent a lot of time with my Mom's chihuahua...
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| It's a dog blog - here's a dog... |
Wish us luck!
