As he worked away, I started mixing up ingredients for the bread and hear a gush of water in the basement. I ran downstairs to see where it was coming from, afraid we had burst a pipe again, (it's happened before and sounded much the same), but no...the water was coming from under the sink...upstairs.
I spent the rest of the evening between trying to get the bread finished up, without using the kitchen sink, and cleaning out whatever got mucky under the sink. Replacing the corroded/broken pipe was going to have to wait until the next day as it was much too late at that point.
Rich got the old pipes taken out quite quickly the next day. I stood there and watched him...you know...for moral support. As I'm watching him, I hear sirens and look down the road out the kitchen window. WAY down there I see flashing lights coming our way and figured there was some type of emergency down our road. But as the lights got beyond some brush, I see that it's a police car chasing a motorcycle. I tell the kids to look out the living room window quickly and we all got to witness a police chase! About 2 minutes later we hear fire tones go off for a rescue at the end of the road for an accident...it turns out it was just the motorcycle and he was fine....but going to jail. (That's probably the only police chase I'll ever see out here, so I had to write about it!)
Back to the kitchen sink. Rich was able to replace the pipes, but they were leaking, and still backing up, even after 3 trips to the closest open place that carried what we needed, about 10 miles away, AND using the Drano. Being it was Sunday, that place closed early, but Rich's parents offered to go to Lowe's/Home Depot and get more pipes to replace even more under the sink.
A couple hours later the rest of the pipes under the sink were replaced and the sink was STILL backing up! Rich's dad then ran home to grab his snake to snake the remainder of the pipes down into the basement. While he was gone, Rich asked his mom if she could help 'band' the bull calves. So we all made our way out to the barn. I decided that I'd collect eggs in the tougher places to get to, up in the hay, while they were working with the calves. There is one spot that the hens lay, right against the wall, but down the height of a bale. It's always kind of dark down there, but the eggs show up enough to grab them. Of course I get down close to look and don't see any eggs, but I do see a SKUNK sitting there...inches away from me. I really don't know what I did, but I got away from him QUICK! I'm very thankful that our little skunk seems to be pretty laid back...he didn't spray, but I think I'm leaving those eggs for him from now on!
Back to the sink...again. So Rich's dad returns with the snake and they do their best to snake out some of the grossest stuff we've ever seen and the sink STILL backed up. It didn't take but a few minutes and they got that issue fixed...thankfully! The excitement of the day was over...or just beginning...because now I have a sink that drains beautifully! ;-)
I can imagine that was probably the most memorable, supposedly 'simple', home improvement day we'll have for a long time! :-)
Sunday night Rich had his 6th Annual Opening Day Eve party. (A party before the first day of deer hunting gun season.) It's mostly guys and they hang out in the garage, drink beer and watch the movie "Escanaba in da Moonlight", but some of the women come along too. The girls usually hang out in the house until the guys are ready to go home and then they're the designated drivers ;-) Well, this year I felt like my house was awkward...no good place for a larger group than 3 or 4 to come together and have a nice time...the living area of the house is split up into 3 small rooms and it just doesn't work nicely. Needless to say we all ended up in the garage after about a half hour...partially because that's where all the food was but, as funny as it sounds, I think our garage is more inviting being a large open space to gather.
This is how you hold the can opener to the can.
