Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. The food is yummy, the football plentiful and the memories, well they are what matter. After managing to rip out most of the working electrical last Christmas Eve, the bar was set pretty high for ‘memorable holiday family moments’….and yet, I think we nailed it. This year will go down as the Thanksgiving that the septic system failed…completely…by diner time.
We dined on a turkey diner with all the trimmings, the table set with my mother’s silver and the china was out for most of us to use. Just because we had no working plumbing, didn’t mean we needed to abandon all civilities. One advantage of having no plumbing was that there were no arguments about whose turn it was to do the dishes. So with the dinner devoured and the pies in the oven, we might as well play croquet making it the official end of the Glory Farm Croquet Season. We donned our straw hats and headed outdoors!
It was THE Grandson’s first game….
He was a good sport and I expect a lot more games in his future. He quickly figured out that this is a BYOB game.
We continued to pile the dishes, pots and pans up in the useless sink and wait ‘it’ out.
We’d scheduled Black Friday for the excavation of the septic drain field. As we were getting ready for the morning, I mentioned I would wear my oldest clothes…
“Oh, Sweetie… you won’t get dirty just driving the tractor. You won’t be in the trench…”
That would have been true, except for the whole ‘flexibility factor’ and when it comes down to just him and me…yep, I ‘win’, into the trench I went…but I am getting ahead of myself.
Black Friday was black…black with mud and some muck…luckily for us the weather was ‘fair’ with only a light rain and not too cold…it was well above freezing.
Number One Son was here for the start of the production helping with the rented track hoe and the digging up of the old drain field/leach lines. 
Septic tanks were actually one of the few things I knew about prior to moving to the country. I grew up in La Canada, California a lovely community that had no sewers…septic was the norm or rather the only. However, what I knew about septic systems consisted of understanding ‘that’ smell. When we kids would smell ‘that’ smell, we would tell our parents. They would then, smell ‘that‘ smell, check our back yard and usually heave a huge sigh of relief…and mutter…’Oh thank God, it is the neighbors’. So, suffice it to say, I didn’t really understand septic not like I do now. What we needed to do was replace the leech field or the drain field for the ‘black’ water….that comes from the septic tank and if you do not know what is in the septic tank…well, then you are on your own.
So began the digging…this is actually where having a clog in one’s system came in handy because the clog was complete…nothing came out..luckily for us…it was just a little bit smelly and let me tell you, it could have been way, way worse.
…and more digging…
Then came my first job using Blue. Blue and I scoop up rock from the rock pile.
and carefully drop the rock into the trench…. I am very proud of my scooping, dropping rock-work and might have had to remind My Loving Spouse who was working very hard and was a tad stressed that I am the best City-Girl-Tractor-Driving-Wife he has and that it is not as easy as it looks.
Next we break for tea…
Well, not exactly…we use the steamer to pour hot water over the pipe so it will be a bit more flexible when the one of us who is more flexible has to climb into the trench and shove the pipe together and into the drain tank.
Now it is time to unclog the clog (hopefully) and have the drain field drain…
Number Two Son steps in to assist with the unplugging of the drain pipe….
We are thankful on Thanksgiving weekend…for clog free drains!
….and drain fields that drain…
and even Team Offspring was thankful…
“You mean we can shower?”
“Yep!!”
“…and flush?”
“Yep”
“Wow! We are living large!”
Of course we were only half done…Saturday morning we had to fill line one and dig line two… Thank God for our neighbor The Retired Fire Captain who thought this would be fun…and came to help dig.
We are grateful for his help…and for tractors…and pipes and drain fields that work. This septic system problem has been hanging over our heads… to have fixed it is a huge relief…to be able to fix it ourselves helps me to see that most things are not as complicated as I might think…. a brand new system could have cost $20,000… A plumber repairing it could have cost $6-7,000
The new septic lines:
Pipe $90
Weed screen $16
New Shovel $10
Rock $270
Track hoe rental $300
Advil for aching muscles $4.99
Doing it oneself… amazing
Flushing……..priceless!
There are many things to be thankful for this year, I am thankful that I can wander around on a new knee, I am thankful for a wonderful place to call home, I am thankful for neighbors who come running when you need help, I am thankful for my family but most of all this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the delightful noise a flushing toilet makes……….And a wife who isn’t going to ask again “are you sure you can fix it”, if only broken hearts were as easy as leach fields.
It is true…you are ‘as handy as pockets!’
I didn’t see an amount listed for a rented port-a-potty. I know THE grandchild brought his own. What DID the rest of you do?
All I can say was that it wasn’t pretty.
Oh Ellen! I’m still laughing about your septic adventure! It makes me truly appreciate each flush.
We are becoming evangelistic and saying “Praise the Lord” with every flush!!
Ah, the aroma! We remember it well. We were blessed by having cesspools rather than septic drain fields. We had one memorable clog when “the Man” came to find the clog upstream of the septic system. I remember it well. As the backed up effects came into the hole he looked up from the hole and smiled at me, saying “…Looks like shit to you, but it’s bread and butter for me.” If clogs could be prevented (diapers, toys, small children) all the system required of us was two 50 pound sacks of lye every two years into the cesspools to leach the fats into soaps that dissolved and once in the 17 years we lived there to have “the Man” with the honey wagon come, dig out the top of the septic tank and suck it out. This was a procedure best viewed from some distance upwind. Even sewers can block up, so those of us on sewer systems can’t afford to get smug.
I never thought I would be ‘one’ of the team to fix it and I must say that I am feeling very proud of us….I think Joe would be amazed…amused…and glad it wasn’t him!
Wow, you guys amaze me. Sam and I replaced a sprinkler head the other day and we thought we were pretty cool …. $7 DIY vs. $100 sprinkler guy. No joke …. I just couldn’t pay the crazy price AGAIN. So we conquered our fear and went for it ourselves. I was pretty proud.
Paige! Good for you and Sam! It is very powerful to figure something out and do it yourself isn’t it?