Well Well Well. Imagine my surprise when I realized that January 6th was the Four year anniversary of our having purchased this 'lil mound o' earth.
It's been three years of actually living here. Sometimes, that feels like just yesterday, and other times, like forever.
Similarly, some days it feels that this project is plugging right along; other times it feels like an eternity, with nothing done to show for it.
Although the fourth anniversary gift lists include wonderful items for a homestead- fruit, flowers, appliances, to name just a few, I got none of this for my anniversary. Instead, January brought with it a case of the something-or-others for me, cancer surgery and tumor removal for our sweet lab rescue, and a frantic call from the water district letting me know that "my reading was high, and my meter was moving."
Apparently, this means the water line was leaking. Fortunately, a friend o' a friend knew a guy, and it was fixed within a few hours. Well, replaced, not fixed. The water lines here originally wander all around the property, and seem to come in to the water hydrants prior to arriving at the house. Unfortunately, some of the line ran under my concrete patio. Did I mention the temp. happened to be below zero, too? No matter, there was no money to tear up and replace the patio, just to find the leak. So, a new line was ran from the meter to the house instead. The hydrants had been broken or shut off when we moved in, so this solution didn't cost us the loss of those features. In fact, in my typical effort to locate the silver lining hidden in the black, I decided that I was indeed lucky, as now we know where our water line is. Presumably this means we can hook the frost free hydrants up to this new line, down the road. Not only would that provide water to the barns and fields, but it also transforms this from an annoying financial drain that I could ill afford, into the first gold star of the year for completing phase one of one of the remaining big projects on that Master Plan.
And that, my friends, is how ya can blow smoke up your own bottom, and turn facts inside out until they feel better :)
