When It Rains......

Well, the cabin has water! Cold water, but that will work for now. 

Kim and I arrrived mid-morning last Friday and tidied the place up a little and late that night Jimmie, Michelle, and Aunt Audrey showed up with their rescue van, filled to the brim.

We spent the first five minutes unloading their luggage and personal items. The next 15 minutes were spent unloading Jimmie's plumbing/construction/demolition equipment. 


The next hour was spent unloading the food that Aunt Audrey brought for their 36-hour visit! Yes, we had food left over! Audrey brought along some blackberry wine and you can see her toasting in the picture above with me having gave up and hit the sofa. She wins!
                                                                                

After taking a break from unloading the food, Jimmie went straight to work checking out what to do first in the bathroom. We made our plans to get started first thing in the morning, although he started tearing out the fixtures right away. 

Once we got into the project we found our leak, right behind the vanity. Jimmie made a quick repair and with our fingers crossed we turned on the water to check our work. We no longer had a leak! At that location. But just to the left of that spot we discovered another. Then another. And another. Always repairing, turning the water on, finding the next leak, turning off the water, repairing and on and on. 

And, to make matters worse, did I mention that it rained the ENTIRE time that they were there? No, that doesn't describe it.... it POURED most of the time! Forty-eight hours in a row! Rain, rain, rain. Everytime we had to turn the water on to check the person was getting wet. Every trip to the outhouse... wet.

We later talked to a neighbor who told us that he knew a local woman that was 100 years old and she told him 

 that was the most rain she had ever seen at one time! The picture to the left taken from our truck shows the water covering Buttermilk Road. Yes, there's a road there somewhere. 

Later in the week Kim and I attempted to drive over to Pennyrile State Park for a late lunch only to find that two different roads leading there were completely covered with many feet of water.

After working all day Saturday and into the night we finally thought we had all the leaks repaired. Unfotunately, after doing all our water checking for a whole day the main water line was dry. We had been operating the water just off of gravity and not using the pump to supply the water. So I went to turn on the pump to do our final check and of course it didn't work. It came on but didn't pump any water. But that was another problem to be fixed the next day. 

Our neighbor, Dewey Billy, wasn't home because of the water blocking the road. He is the pump/well master and knows how to get it to work. We kept checking his house throughout the day but he was gone for two days.

So without a final check, Jimmie, Michelle and A.A. packed up  and pulled out Sunday morning. And Dewey finally made it home and gave me a hand at the pump and it started working. 

Kim and I did a final water-leak check and we saw NO leaks. At first. After looking very close I saw a stream of water so small it looked like a mosquito's urine stream.  (I'll explain in another post how I know what that looks like). 

Where was the leak? Right behind the vanity. The vanity that we had just put back into place and hooked up again. 

Without going into more detail because I can feel my blood pressure rising just talking about all of this again, I'll just finish and say we repaired that leak and one more. We did one final water check and all was dry! We installed the vanity again, turned on the water and started filling up the toilet tank. It filled. And filled.  And filled. Absolutely no leaks but it wouldn't stop filling up, water constantly ran and went into the overflow. 

After a couple of calls to Master-Plumber-Man Bob Watson in Florida we discovered that the entire inlet valve had a zillion leaks in it! OK, enough. We had the tank full and we turned off the water to the toilet. That would allow us to use it during the night if needed. We would go into town in the morning and get the needed replacement parts. And we did. It's fixed. 

The plumbing problem is over, at least for the cold water. But Jimmie visually checked out the hot water lines and they looked good. He installed the new water heater, hooked up the new electric and it's ready for the final plumbing connections and we should be in business. But that will wait for my next trip in late fall.

But in the end it was well worth it. We had a great time visiting with our three helpers, eating all the food, and telling stories. We met three of our neighbors, one of them Ronnie riding in on Blaze.

Kim put up her three new hummingbird feeders and they got a few visitors. We cut a little grass, although the rainy weather prevented me from cutting all that I had planned. 

We cleaned up, put things away and said goodbye to our favorite getaway spot. We left Tuesday afternoon and went on to northern Kentucky to visit with family and prepare for our trip with April & Danny to Niagra Falls Saturday morning. Oh great.... more water!  

                                                        Goodbye for now, stay dry!