Thankfully, it started raining last night, which kept the local fireworks idiots from keeping us up all night again like they did on the 4th. I'm all for pyrotechnics, but when it interferes with my sleep time I get cranky. I figured things would quiet down after midnight: ha! After 0200 I was thinking about calling the cops.
Funny incident (which was more irritating than funny at the time): The garden was getting kind of dry, so I decided to do some watering on Monday. Well, I watered a bit too long and ran the tank in the well-house down to where the gal who shares our well wasn't getting anything. Instead of coming and knocking on our door, she went to the neighbor, on whose property our well sits (long story). He went over and shut off the pumps. Then she came and knocked on our door to let us know that there was a problem. You see, she has a history of letting a faucet run or leaving a leaky toilet tank unattended all day, so she just figured we were being spacey, too. No, I knew exactly what was wrong: I'd be moving the hose from area to area for the last couple of hours!
The previous owners had assured us that there was always plenty of water, which there is. The helpful neighbor guy (and he really is helpful, this weird day notwithstanding), on the other hand, proceeded to tell us that the previous owners never ran any water for more than ten minutes at a time! Water for ten minutes, shut it off for twenty. You're kidding, right? How in the world are you supposed to get anything done that way? I guess because it's an above ground pump (vs. a submersible) it might get overheated if it runs too long. I totally understand that, but I wish the previous owners had said something to that effect when they were explaining the workings of this place to us. Oh, and Helpful Neighbor Guy also informed me that it was better not to water "in the heat of the day."
Heat? I guess he's never lived anywhere that actually gets hot, because I don't consider seventy-flippin'-four degrees to be exaclty sweltering. Also, I had started my watering debacle at about 0830, which isn't exactly mid-day in my book. When I told my folks and the assorted little old church ladies at our ID4 salmon bake that night they just laughed. They found the "heat of the day" comment hilarious, and were indignant about the "10 minutes on then off for 20" routine. Quoth one octogenarian gardener, "I have better things to do!"
Anyway, we're thinking maybe we need to re-locate the well to our property at some point, and goat lady can have the old one with the cranky delicate pump. It will increase the value of the place when it comes time to sell if the well is actually located ON the property, I think.
And now that it's raining I'm sure the fragile Western Washington water table can recover from my depredations.
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