This is the week of adventure. The hot
water heater gave out, in some fashion. Some part or other had
to be replaced. Let's put it this way. We didn't have any warm
water, let alone hot water, for a couple days. So I was delighted
to see the Superman Vehicle of the Superpower EV-Man!
Super EV Man got right down to it.
We had hot water soon after. Well, some number of hours later.
Mom is making us chicken teriyaki.
Wednesday, July 6:
Darrin (the incredible Darrin) steers
his backhoe and digs a ditch along some pipeline or other. Ask
Dad for schematics about what-all is going on here. Darrin is
helped by another incredible guy, Brian, who is a senior at
Utica College and hopes to be drafted to the NFL as a tight end.
When you dig the earth around here,
you get a crop of rocks.
Darrin is one of the nicest guys around,
but he is a little bit camera shy.
If you look closely, you'll see that
Darrin's backhoe has a payload of dirt. Or you could call it clay.
Dad is carefully overseeing.
We (or rather, they) dig a trench
down to the pipe.
This project is lot of hard, sweat work.
Pouring in stone.
Dad seems to be measuring something
with the yellow transit.
The red barn (formerly Whitmarsh' farm).
The new, refurbished Echo Lake Association
Sign! this time with flowers.
Darrin brings nice topsoil down from
the "driveway" up by the main road. The idea is to spread topsoil
over all the perturbed land (which is now clay!) so that Mom can
plant wildflowers. We ordered wildflower seed from AmericanMeadows.com;
recommended!
The Greene Memorial Library offers
free high-speed wireless. Inside ...
... and outside on the bench under
the spreading maple. If you had a laptop with wireless card with
you, that is. In a moment of sanity, I didn't bring any laptops
with me to Echo Lake.
Relaxing in the late afternoon sun.
Thursday, July 7:
Another beaver dam, this one with
tree carcasses sticking up, dark and twisted, across the green
fields.
A day later, but the unthinkable
has happened. There is some problem with the installation. Either
it's not pumping out properly, or it's leaking, or who knows what.
A long day of excavation and replacing-parts begins. It was
raining quite a bit, so Darrin put up a tent.
Darrin gamely climbed into the
system, took out the pump, and replaced it with a pump that a guy
from Binghamton drove out. Tests are ongoing. Let us all pray
that the malfunctioning pump was the problem, and that from here
on, all will be well and just work like it should. But we also
recognize that such problems are trivial compared to being on
the wrong underground line in London today. Our prayers go out
to all those hurt and the families of those who perished.