Wife vs vicious squirrel

On a recent weekend, I ended up working through a good part of it since we had another software release at work and it wasn't going real smooth.  I was in my home office most of the time and at one point my wife poked her head in and saw that I was on a call so she closed the door without saying anything.

It wasn't until later that I found out what had happened.

You see - sometimes there are both good and bad aspects to being stuck working at certain points in time.  This is one of moments.

So the reason my wife had come in was to see if I could get a squirrel out of our pool enclosure.  My daughter had noticed it and told my wife.  My wife, seeing I was on a call decided that she could get the squirrel out with a little support from my son to help her.  Now my son isn't much for animals in general so he is with her just to provide comforting words. 

My wife chooses the pool skimmer with the long pool as her weapon of choice to try and prod the squirrel out of the enclosure. The squirrel is hanging on the netting trying to figure out where to go.  My wife gets the squirrel on the skimmer net and then she starts to bring it towards her a bit - she is on the narrow side deck between the pool and enclosure so not much room to maneuver the net. Now, what she didn't think about was that the squirrel was scared stiff and didn't know what to do other than.... JUMP.  

Apparently, it chose to jump towards her.  We don't know why or whether it thought it could make it over her.  It didn't make it over her by the way.  It hit her awkwardly on top of the head and she screamed very loudly, my son says.  After which, the squirrel fell in the pool. It swam quickly to the side and got out at which point it clung to the side of the enclosure panting like mad and looking pretty pathetic.

My wife quickly recovered but took a break.  My son and wife had opened the doors on each side of the enclosure with the hope it would just find its way out.  After a long while, it still hadn't gotten out.  As it finally got closer to an open door, my wife went out to see if she could goad it into getting all the way out.  Unfortunately, her arrival had the initial opposite effect - it put all its attention on the bad lady that dropped it in the pool..   

After a few more minutes though, it finally recognized that there was an opening and it made good time getting out..  I suspect I will see one less squirrel running up and down the side of the pool enclosure now.

Of course, I'm working through this whole thing and oblivious to the fun and adventure.  I wish my daughter had taken video.. it would be worthy of AFV on television. 

Now how the squirrel go into the enclosure.. best guess is I have had an electrical cord running from the lanai out to my workshop since I don't have the electric from the house run out there yet - which means the enclosure door is always open a little..  My wife has informed me that the cord is no longer keeping the door open..   (I say right now at least... ehehhehe  ) 

Hope this adventure gives someone a smile.

Wrong assumption

So if you read enough of my blog post for the last couple years you will notice a theme that we've had to deal with a lot of home repairs.  I've gotten into a bit of a mode where I am just expecting something else to go wrong each week..

Well, one morning my wife was out of the house early and on her way to work while I was still laying in bed.  As I lay there, I heard a bird chirping loudly and a kind of thrumming hum.  It didn't last long enough then to really draw my attention but then it started happening again and in my semi-foggy state started to think about the sounds. 

The first thing that started to come to mind is the heat pump which is right outside the window.  I've been waiting for it to go out.  As I lay there, I'm thinking it sounds like the compressor wants to start but can't.  And what is up with the bird like chirping sound - did something nest next to the to heat pump and is now flipping out due to the sounds or is it the heat pump too?

I'm going to cover my head a minute and find a happy place now.

I finally get up and decide there is little to be done - wait until evening to look at it closely.  My son was still around and he commented that mom had forgotten her phone - she gotten a hold of him from work. Anyways, I had an afternoon appointment that I did not want to miss nor did I want to be all uptight from the heat pump issue.  Normally I would just call the wife and things would be better - but couldn't that day.  

When I went to my appointment, I took my wife's phone with me since I figured I would be pretty close to her work and I could drop it off.  The ESL class at church was that evening and I know she likes to know earlier than later if any teachers/helpers can't make it those evenings.  

I dropped her an email that I would swing by and when I met her I told her about the heat pump sounds.  She laughed a little.  I thought she lost it.  Then she explained that she kept missing texts so our daughter changed the sound of her text notifications to a chirping bird and left the vibrate on too.  

Hm, chirping bird you say?  That could sound a bit like a bearing on a compressor trying to go out and combine that with what sounds like an electric motor hum..  and I did find her phone in the bedroom.

Sigh.  Ok, so the heat pump isn't going out.  It was just her phone.

I did sigh with relief at that point.  

Psalm 107:30 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

30 Then they were glad because they were quiet,
So He guided them to their desired haven.

Unwelcome surprise

So do you ever have moments where you want to pretend you didn't hear something?  There are times I do this just for fun when my wife is talking to me about various things - "Huh, sorry, didn't hear you?".  Usually this involves something that was forgotten.. theoretically speaking that might include something like a dry towel..  

Then there are the times when you do wish you didn't hear something.  Usually this coincides with some very unenjoyable event for me.  

This was an instance of the second item.  I know it is bad when my wife calls and the first words are "we have a problem!".  I really don't want to hear that. 

The next words that come out are all in a semi-intelligible rush -  "water.. pipe broke.. spraying everywhere.  Where are YOU?"!

I was able to gather after a minute that the pipe was outside.  Ok, that is either really good or really bad.  Fortunately, we had been doing enough work on the house that my wife and son were aware of where the shutoffs (multiple) were outside.  Their first attempt ended up being the one for the water heater only.  Fortunately, the second shutoff did work.  I say fortunately because the problem was downstream of the shutoff at the house and not between the house and the road.

When I got home, I found that the line going to the long defunct sprinkler system had broken loose at a 90 degree elbow just *before* a shutoff valve. 

When I had received my wifes somewhat frantic call I was still at work and it is roughly an hour home.  I got on my way quickly at that point - it was somewhere between 6-7pm already.  I was able to talk my wife through what I mainly needed to cap it (which I hoped was all that was required since I hadn't seen it yet).  She went to Lowes and picked up a variety of pipe sizes since they couldn't determine the exact size.  

It worked out that she had the size required.  The only problem was that my pipe cement was expired - normally I don't even pay attention but I happened to decide to check since if this broke loose again I may not know immediately so better safe than sorry.  I made the run to Walmart at that point and got a fresh pack of Oatey cement/primer. 

I ended up ripping out the lines that went to the sprinkler zones at the back of the house so I had room to splice in a new piece of pipe.   You can see below that I spliced in a fairly long (~ 2 feet) piece of pipe which was longer than needed but it let me reuse the clamp that was attached to the wall to hold it before.  I didn't have that clamp in place for the picture though.

I think I finally got it done about 9:30pm and had the water to the house back on around 11:30pm.  I wanted to give the pipe cement a bit of time to fully cure. The extra parts in the weeds/grass were from the sprinkler plumbing I ripped out.

So we figure we had a sideways geyser for probably several hours before it was noticed.  The sort of funny part is that my wife had gotten out of work and she laid down for a while in the master bedroom just feet away from the break.  Apparently at one point she got up very sleepily and noticed the sink only trickled but then laid down again.  Next time she woke she thought it was raining and then realized that wasn't the issue..

So our next water bill will be a little higher than normal but it could have been a lot worse.  I'm just glad the pipe wasn't in the house and am grateful that my son and wife were able to find and turn the shutoff.

I do have one extra project out of this now though.  When they shutoff water to the water heater - there are 2 valves.  One is an old brass gate valve and the other a newer PVC valve that someone spliced in instead of fixing the deteriorated old brass valve.  My wife had my son shut off both and the brass valve was pretty much shot and leaks when you try to close it. So now I will go ahead and put something else in that doesn't leak.

2 Corinthians 5:1 English Standard Version (ESV)

Our Heavenly Dwelling

5 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.