Plumbing

On Monday, Roo, Fergus and Uno got out of their paddock. Patrick had taken the snap off the gate to use elsewhere, not realising that Fergus has been channelling Provo's gate-opening abilities and therefore also knows how to get that gate open.

Escapee horses aren't exactly a big deal at our house, so all Patrick did was round them up into the orchard and shut that gate in order to deal with them later.

Not a problem.

Until I started thinking about all that lovely green grass in the orchard and what it might be doing to them, so I txted him to ask him not to leave them in there too long.

So Patrick went to retrieve them. He sent Fergus back where he belonged, and Roo followed willingly, leaving Uno alone in the orchard. Pft went back to get Uno and as he was leading him through the gate, Uno, already anxious from being left behind, got his foot caught in the hose - and being Uno - freaked at the thing grabbing him by the ankle and bolted, running straight through some cross-ties (conveniently fastened to a piece of breakaway baling string), and ripping the hose along with him which in turn promptly snapped the hose-bib (the one with the three faucets on it = all the horse waterers) off down in the ground and causing a 30 ft-high geyser of water to shoot into the sky.

Patrick said a bad word. He even txted me that word.

Being that we're on a well, the only way to stop the water from shooting 30 ft into the tree is to turn the well pump off, which means no water to the house.

And then instead of following Rule #1 of plumbing (check your watch to see what time the hardware store closes*), Patrick unwisely didn't.

(* this will almost always be 3 minutes before the event occurred)

Predictably, the five tins of plumbing cement we owned were completely dried up so there would be no plumbing activity occurring that evening.

And no shower for me the next morning.

.

Happy to report that our resident plumber (Patrick) fixed the problem the following day and we can now wash our hands, flush toilets, and the horses and chickens can drink again.

Yay for people who can fix things!