The tide is turning

 No Beans, this isn't another chapter in Sarge's book, but it does involve water.  

Just a quick update on what the battlefield looks like now.  21 days since Icemageddon, there are still quite a few folks without power or water.  Black Helicopters have been flying overhead regularly.

I'm hoping he's just inspecting the powerlines, but it could be the feds!

So...When last we visited, the Well Dude, a newly wealthy man, had arrived and fixed the cracked pipes from the well that provides water to our old house and our, soon to be two, guest houses.  When asked if he could work on the connections to the buildings, he stated, "his responsibilities end at the wellhead." 

So, it's back on the phone and start dialing plumbers.  After dialing 7 different numbers and not getting even an answering machine, Mrs J struck gold.  The guy was on his way back from Austin and was bored, so he answered on his cell.  Unfortunately, his wife had had back surgery (It went well, Beans, thanks for asking), so he'd not taken any jobs not knowing what his availability would be.  Since she was going to be in the hospital for a few days, he was available.  He agrees to meet with us Tuesday.

We had three parts to this project. Since we'd had to cancel reservations to the current guest house until water was restored, that was our first priority.  We had a reservation on Thursday ($$$$, Beans). Second priority was re-attaching the kitchen sink in our old house, the final phase of the renovation of the kitchen required by water damage.  Since Phase 2 of Operation "Everyone move one house clockwise" (Moving my sister into our old house) was completed, having to wash dishes in the laundry room sink, while doable, wasn't optimum.  

Yeah, I know, optimum in a disaster isn't a high priority,  however, making progress in returning to "normalcy" or a reasonable facsimile thereof, is important for one's mental health.

So, his second priority, was our old house, hereafter referred to as "My Sister's House".  Third priority was fixing her old house, "The New Guest House", in preparation for DIL and dog, Tex's arrival the last week in March. 

No problem he says, we'll get it done.  That small bit of hubris, was probably the cause of the graying of what little hair I have left. We asked him to let us know by Noon on Wednesday if he didn't think he'd get it done. It takes him a day to get the water leak in the handle of the shower fixed.  Unfortunately, the construction of the guesthouse (640 sq ft), required some tight quarters.  The plumber had played football in college, Big Guy.  Finally, he's able to get the handle off.  It's going to need replacing, but he's got the water shut off to the shower.  He turns on the water to the remainder of the house, and goes to wash his hands in the kitchen. Shortly after he turns it on, he notices the water is now leaking from the kitchen faucet where it hadn't been leaking before.

I learned quite a bit about plumbing this past week.  Apparently, water flows to the point of least resistance.  If that point goes away, it seeks other points that might have shortly before been more resistant than the first one.  

Water goes off again, Kitchen faucet comes off, another replacement needed.  I'm now scheduled for a trip to Lowes as we already know that the Sink in what will be the new guest house has a leak in the handle.  

It's only money!

 I had taken a picture of the faucets with my phone so I'd have something to guide me in getting close to a style Mrs J would like.  Show it to the Lowes plumbing guy.  He say's wait right here, goes and gets the scissor lift, jumps on and pops it up to the top of the shelving, grabs a single box and comes back down. 

Fortunately, the box contained two kitchen faucet kits, because when I asked him how many he had left, he just smiled.

Mrs J hadn't gone with me to the store to be my design approver as she had to deal with AirBnB to cancel the reservation we had scheduled for the next day.  Apparently, not having plumbing is not sufficient reason to late cancel a reservation to an AirBnB call center in some parts of the world.  Mrs J can be chillingly polite when provoked.  When the call was finally escalated to someone who spoke a more familiar brand of English, the situation was resolved.

The next day, the plumber is back and installs the faucets.  At this point, with great trepidation, I turn on the well and water is restored.  That was last Thursday, 18 days after we lost it.  Our first guest, post storm, arrived Saturday.  We explained what had happened and asked her to "PLEASE call us at any indication of water problems regardless of the time of day."

The plumber, shortly to be a very wealthy man, will be back today to get my Sister's kitchen back up and running and hopefully by the end of the week, water will be on in the new guest house.  

We must be getting closer to normalcy.  Mrs J actually found time yesterday to begin a water color painting project.

She's tracing the outline of a photograph she'd like to paint.

Peace Out, y'all!

Update

Rat's Nest? A phone charging cable and a desk lamp?