If you read my previous post about the bath water stopping as I was filling the tub night before last, you might be curious to see what we found to be the problem. The entire day yesterday was a water line repair day.

There are two ways to get to our water tank, and usually that’s where troubleshooting begins. We can either hike on foot up the mountain behind the house, which is the most direct way there but is fairly labor intensive. Or we can drive on the ATV the long way around through our neighbor’s land and logging roads to where it adjoins the logging road on our property near the top of the mountain.

There is No Straight Line

From point A to point B seems simple enough, and driving there sounds easier than hiking there. However, out here there rarely ever is an incidence of being able to go from point A to point B without a lot of “A.1”, “A.1.a”… types of steps in between. Have you ever followed an SOP to get to an end result? If so, you know what I mean. Lots of steps in between two seemingly direct points.

First, once we leave the relatively tended fields and logging road of our neighbor, we enter the wild lands of Wild Ozark. Those lands are not tended often. Nature is in charge for the most part. And nature sees an empty space, like the middle of a road, as a blank canvas that needs trees and brambles.

Let’s just say that at some points along the ‘road’, once we left the neighbor’s property, we really couldn’t tell for sure where the road should be. And there were parts where we knew was the road, but was now littered with downed trees that had fallen since our last trip up there.

Cue the loppers and chain saw. Before we could reach the tank to work on our water issues, we had to first work on the road issues. This is step A.1. in our SOP. (Step A was opening and closing all of the gates along the way to get to our own property line).

A.1.a = washed out gullies that needed rocks before we could cross.

A.2. = repeat A.1. and A.1.a. until reaching the water tank. Takes ~ 40 minutes to an hour.

We made it

Step B. Assess the situation

From the damage it was obvious who the culprit was – one of our local bears.

Step B.1., fix it. The repair itself isn’t difficult, cut the line, reconnect the line, and done until the next time we run out of water. Which wouldn’t be long if we didn’t do something to deter the bear next time.

Step B.1. Go back to get forgotten supplies discussed in … oh wait a minute, whoever wrote this SOP forgot to include a materials checklist.

On the way back, we also had to return to step A to work on the gullies more to make crossing them more safe, and cut more trees since we’d gotten impatient and just plowed through some of the smaller ones on the way there.

Water Line Repair Day not Over Yet

No water at the house yet, and it’s been long enough. Go back to the tank, and remember to bring the axle grease this time.

Rob drove the long way around, I walked up to check the lines and make sure there were no breaks toward the tank.

I don’t walk with focus on the destination. It’s a hard hike, great cardio workout no matter how slow I go. So I stop often and make observations and take photos. And still manage to be out of breath by the time I get to the top. Even with all the stops, I still beat Rob up there by about 15 or 20 minutes off of the long-way-around time.

Still not done yet

After putting on the axle grease, checking to see that there were no other leaks along the way up and finding nothing, we went back to the house to try the faucets again.

Still nothing. There was enough water in the tank now to have some sort of flow, but nothing. So we tried blowing air from the bottom to the top, to see if that would help. It didn’t.

It was time for yet a third trip to the tank. Our water line repair day was determined to last the entire day. This time I rode on the ATV. When we got to the tank, Rob opened the large drain valve on the tank bottom, let a little run out, then closed it back. Maybe there was some sort of block right at that point.

We went back to the house. This time it worked! All we had to do now was wait a few hours for enough water to get cleaned up.

Finally – a hot bath!

Every muscle in my body hurts by the end of a day like that, and I enjoyed every minute of my soak in a hard-earned hot bath.