Puppy Days

This is really not about puppy’s at all, except for her cute pictures…it just seemed a much nicer title than say… Septic Tank Days or Clogged Plumbing Days.  As things do, everything got worse before it got better.  ‘We’ spent an entire evening snaking sewer lines only managing to stop up the clog completely, wheeling long snakes around the bathroom, only managing to get the bathroom dirtier in the process.  We dug up the septic tank, which of course was gross and seemed rather too full…yuck.  It was also hot and smokey from the fires in our mountains.  What can I say….it was not pretty.

(With this in mind, I’ve decided to include some pretty and fun pictures that have absolutely NOTHING to do with our plumbing issues.  My flower border around the vegetable garden with beets and onions in the background.)

We went to bed, dirty with admonitions to the Offspring to not shower, not flush, do not run water and do not do laundry.  Other than that we were good.

The morning came and we were to have a two prong attack.  My Loving Spouse would go to work and I would first call the septic tank specialist and then the root-digger-out-of-the-pipes-specialist.  I was feeling optimistic and grateful that this hadn’t happened when we had 9 people here…  Until, I came into the kitchen to find Number Two Son sitting on the floor, looking flushed with a leaking grocery sack he was throwing up in.

(Probably time for another nice picture….Zoe meets Elsie Gump.)

The Teen was having her first job interview and was a bit panicked (rightly) about the shower issue.  “Phone a friend” was the life line I tossed out to her.

I proceeded to call the septic company, who hemmed and hawed.. said they’d get back to me, weren’t sure they had anybody!!!  YIKES!  So in an effort to handle at least some of the poop around here Zoe and I cleaned up the pond pasture of cow poop and felt like we were at least making progress somewhere.  The septic company called back and said, someone would be here by early afternoon and might be able to pump the tank AND fix the clog.  She quickly became my new favorite person in Ellensburg.  Not to be fickle or anything, but my even newer favorite person was the Septic tank guy who actually showed up at 10:30 AM and not only quickly fixed the clog, but said we didn’t need the tank pumped ($$$), oh, and they’d bill us.  Yep, still not use to that.

We could flush…we could shower….some of us were really happy!  One of us was still throwing up…again…just like last week….

My Loving Spouse and I conferred that Number Two might have more than the flu and needed to be seen.  Except…the doctor we had hoped to be his had been in Kenya on a mission trip most of the time Number Two has been home, so Number Two was not an established patient yet anywhere….  I called the Family Practice, who first said..

“Next week?”

“Yes, except…he’s pretty sick now…”

“Yes..let me see…hang on..”

Then my even newer favorite person came back on the line…

“Tomorrow”, she said.

We pretty much love living in a small town.

By evening Number Two kept down a piece of toast and ginger ale,

everyone had showered,

the bathroom had been cleaned,

life was looking good.