It just wouldn’t be Christmas without some sort of plumbing issue!  Haha, seems like every year we have something go out.  First time it was the well pump.  Second, was the sump pump.  Another year, the sump pump again…  and this year, was no different.

The line running out to the farmyard hydrant decided to spring a leak.  Considering that it’s probably umpteen years old, I’m not surprised.  But it went and flooded out part of the yard and we had to turn off the water to the whole house because we could not find the actual shut off for that line of pipe!

Well, Jessy is our resident plumber-wanna be!  She really has a knack for it.  Understands the whole process.  She has really got a good sense of it all.  When she was down there at first to just turn off the whole leak issue, she tried to find the source and found that everything was just a jumbled up mess.  It does make sense, though, this old farmhouse is multi-generational and over 115 years old.  Things have been added and changed and moved all over.

So Jessy decided that she would map out the basement plumbing lines!  She made a bunch of little tags to hang in key spots.  Since most of the area is a crawl, she made some makeshift knee pags and got her best flash light, her ipod to contact us and take pictures and her best grubby jeans and old hoodie!  

And off she went.  I helped upstairs, checking faucets as she turned the water on and off to figure out where the turnoffs were and all.  Poor Evee was very concerned that her Mom was down in the nasty dark place.  She would not go down the stairs to save her life!

Ratchet was worried as well.  No one goes down in our basement.  It’s dark and has a dirt floor and is only about 10 foot by 10 foot where a normal person can stand up.  The rest is a crawl about 4 foot tall.  Nasty and old and creepy!  Jessy is such a brave young woman!

After about an hour of work and testing, and a phone call to a friend, she located the actual turn off and got it switched off.  It was hard to find because the actual handle had broken off!  So, the house once again had water throughout, but the line out to the yard had to be turned off for now.  It’s way too cold to try and dig up that line and see if we can fix it.  To be perfectly honest, we may just abandon that line and install a new frost free line to the new hydrant we installed this summer.   It would probably be the best option.  But we’ll think about it and let Jessy decide!  She’s the plumber goddess here at Windhaven!   I’m so proud of my two young ladies…  they don’t pale at the need to do some tough things outside their comfort zone.  They are tougher than you think!  Some day, we’ll have this old homestead working wonderfully.  Until then, we will keep on and keep learning new DIY skills!