Skip to main content

Sprung a leak

It only cost $1200 to recover all my photos. A bargain at twice the price. Not! I also found my resume among the data saved from our crashed computer. That's something. It's nice not to have to rewrite it, although with my track record of late, maybe I should make a few revisions anyway. We also found a few of Ron's important client files on the recovery disk along with plenty of junk. Oh well. Live and learn.
Turns out we had a little earthquake impact at our house after all. The other day, I went to add some chlorine to our water tank and noticed that it was less than a fifth full. Yikes. It hadn't rained hard in awhile, but it seemed unimaginable that we could have used up all that water so fast. We're talking 10,000 gallons! After some careful examination, we found the cause. The overflow pipe had moved out of alignment with the main input line, causing a leak at the joint where the two pipes meet. None of the rain had been making it's way to the tank. Instead, it just spilled out onto the ground. Bummer. When I picked up the overflow pipe and moved it, the two connecting pipes resealed at the joint and all was fixed. Before I moved it, that pipe had been sitting in the exact groove in the dirt where it had always been. The only only way it could have moved is if the ground itself had moved. So it has more than likely been leaking since the earthquake, which means that a whole month's worth of rain was lost. Add to that our regular showers, flushes, dished and laundry using water from the tank and you have a recipe for disaster. Fortunately we discovered the problem before we ran out completely. As it is now, we've adopted the Focker's mantra: If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down. I plan to take a couple of laundry loads to the launderette tomorrow.
Ron has been cutting down trees all week. I think he's channeling the spirit of Paul Bunyan. Unfortunately, he hasn't quite got his aim perfected. A big fat one landed squarely on top of an avocado tree today, snapping it in two. I tried grafting the top back to the bottom with electrical tape and re-rooting another big branch that had been severed. We'll see if they make it.
A hui hou. Aloha!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fruity booty

It was a long drive from Glenwood to the northern tip of the island -- three hours -- so for sustenance, we stopped at Baker Tom's for malasadas on the way. My pal Kathy and I were headed to Kapa'au for a hike, one we'd read about in the local newspaper. The couple who run Baker Tom's (not sure if the husband is actually Tom or not) are delightful, with enduring stamina. They're as old as radio, yet they're always on duty, ready to serve behind the counter, as they have for many years, frying, baking, brewing and smiling, there in Papaikou , gateway to the Hamakua Coast. The malasadas are enormous, cheap and delicious, the coffee OK, the tourists all happy to have discovered this place, buzzing with sugar and caffeine. They make a killer pumpkin cheesecake at Baker Tom's, too. It's always a pleasant stop. Ahapua'a . It's a Hawaiian land division, usually a strip or wedge, stretching from mountain to sea. Hawaiians lived in villages wit

Born and bred

The creature stared at me, wide-eyed through the florescent glare, Saran Wrap stretched tight across its broad back. Alone in the seafood cooler, he was the only one of his kind, there among the farmed, color-added Atlantic salmon and mud-flavored tilapia, perched on a blue foam tray, legs tucked 'round him like a comfy kitten. He didn't blink. He was dead, red, cooked and chilled, ready to eat. Such a find is rare in the City Market fish department in Gunnison, Colorado. What if nobody takes him home? I thought. This beautiful animal will have died needlessly, ripped from his home, family and friends (Dory, Nemo, Crush and Gill?) only to be tossed in the trash when his expiration date came and went. I lifted him for closer inspection, checked that date, felt the heft of him, scanned his surface for cracks and blemishes. The creature was perfect. I lowered him back into the cooler, nodded farewell, turned to walk away, took one step, and stopped. Shoppers strolled past, stud

Small town observations

Every day at noon, a siren blares from atop the city government building in Gunnison. Each time I hear it, I want to shout, “Yabba dabba doo!” even though it’s nowhere near happy hour. I’ve blurted this once or twice, only to elicit blank stares in response. Am I that old? Doesn’t anyone remember the The Flintstones? I hear that horn and imagine Fred sliding down the long neck of his gravel-quarry dino-dozer (which, thanks to Jurassic Park and the miracle of Google we all recognize now as riojasaurus). Quitting time! Fred flees, his fleet feet slapping toward a rack o’ ribs and a night of good times with Wilma, Barney, Betty and Dino. That’s Dino the dino, pronounced Deeno the dyno. Think that’s delusional? Another day, walking downtown near the source of the noontime wale, it struck me, a revelation it was, that the ramp up to full blast sounds just like the introduction to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, only this is a mega-air-raid, civil-defense siren solo rather than a clarinet, whic