Job finished

Brad and the drain guy finished the repairs about 2:00 --- took them nearly five hours today. The clump of impacted roots was about two feet long. The photos are blurry so it's hard to see. They installed a clean-out piece just outside the house in the yard which will make any future investigating a bit easier. Hope it never has to be used! The black furry looking thing is part of the clump of tree roots.

 

Unbelievable how dense the roots were.

 Broken pipe in background.

 Pipe cut at both ends, ready for the new piece. Camera battery died so I don't have photos of the rest of the process. It's all put back together now.

Easy Come, Easy Go............... Happy Father's Day, Brad

Some of you have heard me speak about how God seems to provide for us financially, especially when a crunch-time hits --- and most often it's a fairly small crunch-time thing, but nonetheless worrisome. A couple of weeks ago I had some discussion with the company holding our mortgage. Without going into lots of details, I'll just say that it turns out they had withheld excess dollars in escrow for the Amherst County taxes. They said it would take a couple of months to be sorted out, so I just put the entire thing out of my mind.

Today we got a nice check in the mail for the escrow overage that had been withheld. However, also today we found that water was not draining out of the kitchen sink, or for that matter any place in the house. The problem seemed to be that the sewer drain pipe going from the house to the septic tank was blocked. This had happened once before some years ago and it was determined that tree roots had breached the pipe.

So Brad called someone with experience in this area. Sure enough, they found a huge blockage in the drain pipe. But in the process of finding the problem they also discovered that the pipe was cracked and broken, and a section of it will need to be replaced. I won't go into all the smelly details of today's episode. To finish the job, some parts had to be obtained, plus a couple of different tools.

So guess what is happening here on Father's Day? Brad will be assisting in this repair work. Some old terra cotta piping will be removed and new PVC piping put into place. Oh boy!!

And the nice check we received in the mail is another example of "just-in-time" economics. Thank you, God, for giving us a way to pay for this unforeseen expense!

Spring sprucing

My book club met here this week. I wanted things to look good so we added some color through plants. Hope we have more company soon!

"Drinking porch."

Tried to snap with hummingbird on the feeder but was not quick enough.

 By the driveway entrance door.

 New vase on mantelpiece. Sunflowers, day lilies and red hot pokers.

Additions to the wild azalea garden.

And this morning the cows arrived!  Yay, it finally feels like summer is here. The grass is so tall it's hard to see the cows!

Walking to Hanshill

Brad loves to joke around with his students. This year on Earth Day he and one of his students got into a discussion about environmental consciousness and doing things to save energy. Brad teased the student about riding to school every day in a car driven by a parent so the parent makes two round-trip drives each day. He suggested the student might consider riding her bike to school instead --- you know, put your money where your mouth is. Even riding a school bus might be more environmentally sound.

So he and this student went round and round back and forth. Finally they came up with a challenge/agreement. If the student would ride her bike to school, then Brad would walk home from school.  The challenge was accepted, on both sides.

So yesterday, Monday June 4, was the day. Sure enough the student rode her bike. She left home at 5:45 a.m. and arrived at E. C. Glass at 6:52. I don't know the exact number of miles she rode but it was at least ten miles. The bike then sat in Brad's classroom for the day.

Here she's at Boonsboro Road and 501.

In the parking lot at E. C. Glass --- she made it!

   Ta da!  This exceptional young woman's name is Hope Wright!

At 11:47 a.m. Brad struck out on his hike to get home, heading down Memorial Avenue and Fifth Street. In the first hour he made it downtown, across the bridge, and about a half mile up River Road. When he got to Red and Dot's, he stopped and had two Gatorades. He sat on the porch and chatted with the proprietors.  Here he is walking along River Road maybe a half mile before Red  Dot's.

In this next shot he had made it up the long, arduous hill on King's Road and he is on a flat spot just before the house that has the cows.

He said the worst part of the walk, going up King's Road, was made immeasurably easier by a phone call he got as he was starting up the hill. The coach of the Glass lacrosse team, Coach Ranuska, called Brad to give him advance notice of something very exciting. He had just learned that two of our seniors had been chosen as All American lacrosse players from the state of Virginia. The players are Jimbo Moore and Joe Vincent. In addition Joe was chosen as the Regional player of the year. Brad said talking to Coach Ranuska and hearing this fabulous news made the walk a breeze -- he scarcely knew he was walking up that steep hill.

In this next shot he's on Elon Road with the railroad bridge off in the distance ahead.

Now I'm waiting at the Leftwich Road intersection --- he has just crossed the railroad bridge.

 FINALLY, he had made the turn onto Leftwich Road -- I'm sitting next to the mailboxes. Thank heavens nobody ran him over out there on the highway.

 Coming through our gate and onto our driveway.

Faith was barking about the person walking down our road toward the house. Finally she figured out that the person was a friendly face.  HOME AT LAST. The 7.4 mile trip was completed in two hours and 50 minutes. Good for you, Mr. Barth!!

This effort was not environmentally friendly, since the student's mom drove more miles than on a normal school day, and ditto for the Barths. I drove Brad to school in the morning, then went out three different times to check his progress on his walk. However, we hope that this was a memorable day for the student. At least it says something about Mr. Barth's word.  Go, old man!!

deer deterrent?

Deer are a never-ending problem around here, but especially in the vegetable garden. You will have a lovely row thriving one day, and the next it has been eaten away. Of course other varmints do this as well, especially groundhogs. But deer definitely cause problems.

For years Mama has insisted that a good deer deterrent is Octagon soap ( a form of bar soap that has been around for many years). You are supposed to cut a cake of soap into several pieces and then hang them around the garden fence to ward off the evil deer --- oops, I mean to keep the deer from coming into the garden. We microwave the whole bar for about 20 seconds. That softens it enough that it is manageable to cut and it does not flake.

Our method is to wrap the small sections of soap in netting and then use floral wire to attach the wrapped piece of soap to the barbed wire fence. Outside of the barbed wire fence is an electric fence. This approach is fairly effective in keeping out the deer. Of course it does nothing for ground-hugging animals like rabbits, groundhogs and skunks.  We cut up 8 bars of soap, each into six pieces.

 Brad is hanging a new little cake. I hope this remedy works!