Summer Fun
The most stereotypical question asked in the late summer months is: what did you do on your vacation? At the “WhenAmIFinished” Farm Spa, one would think the conditions are ideal for a relaxing, summer resort. There’s horseback riding, swimming, fishing, hiking, berry picking – plus all the other summer-related fun activities: fly swatting, mosquito slapping, sweating, farm equipment repairs, bushogging, and fixing multiple plumbing leaks in the barn, left over from freezing winter weather.
What better time for an amateur to repair plumbing leaks in the barn than in Memphis-area summer heat, with temperatures in the upper 90s and heat indexes in the 100s? As with older, mature plumbing, when one part is repaired, more places break, so the job becomes a marathon of repairs.
“Mr. Fix It,” the genius farm owner, believes he can fix anything “if’n he puts his mind to it.” And he is quite competent at fixing most things around the farm. Plumbing is simple, isn’t it? Just pieces of pipe, metal or plastic, put together much like a child’s Legos, right? Well, there is the copper pipe that has to be soldered. Not so simple, as it turns out.
If you step into the barn, you can observe trenches dug in the floor to access pipes so deep it looks like a battlefield in WW I. Mr. Fix It is on his hands and knees, “praying” multiple times a day to the plumbing god – or more like cursing the plumbing god. This job has become more a test of will – he WILL fix these plumbing leaks or else!
Fortunately, there’s a hardware store just a few miles down the road in Ellendale, where Mr. Fix It has become a fixture. As each part breaks, he goes back to the hardware store to get yet another piece of pipe, coupler, or some other piece of plumbing equipment. He’s keeping their plumbing department in business.
Unfortunately, the site of the current plumbing break is in front of one of the horse’s stalls – and the horse cannot get into his stall for meal time. The first day he was quite confused as to where to go, and quite frustrated about having to eat his meals in another stall that is not his “home.” After several days of the change, he reconciled himself to the temporary move, but is still dissatisfied with the new accommodations. He’ll be glad when he can get back into his old, dark, cool stall so he can get his sleep in the corner unbothered by flies.
As you may have guessed, the original plumbing leak was in the bathroom. When Mr. Fix It ripped out the bathroom floor, the inevitable termite damage was discovered, and Mr. Fix It decided he would replace the floor using Cypress, which termites find distasteful. In the Mid-South, Cypress trees are common, and we even have some on our farm. But most of the Big Box lumber stores are headquartered in Ohio or Pennsylvania, and their lumber comes from places like British Columbia. This gives Mr. Fix It an opportunity to peruse one of his favorite sites on the web, the Craigslist farm and garden section. A couple of contacts later and he’s off to a remote on-site lumber mill near the Hatchie River, where Mr. Fix It swaps tall tales with the workers about hunting, as he purchases the six boards he needs to fix the floor.
At this point we’re just hoping the plumbing issue can be repaired before cold weather hits. You’ve heard the commercial about the construction contractor who says we’ll come to your home, tear up everything, and then disappear for two weeks? That’s the state of our barn: with the bathroom floor ripped out and half the barn aisle trenched with standing water, mimicking the WWI trenches in Europe. Mr. Fix It likes a challenge.
The most stereotypical question asked in the late summer months is: what did you do on your vacation? At the “WhenAmIFinished” Farm Spa, one would think the conditions are ideal for a relaxing, summer resort. There’s horseback riding, swimming, fishing, hiking, berry picking – plus all the other summer-related fun activities: fly swatting, mosquito slapping, sweating, farm equipment repairs, bushogging, and fixing multiple plumbing leaks in the barn, left over from freezing winter weather.
What better time for an amateur to repair plumbing leaks in the barn than in Memphis-area summer heat, with temperatures in the upper 90s and heat indexes in the 100s? As with older, mature plumbing, when one part is repaired, more places break, so the job becomes a marathon of repairs.
“Mr. Fix It,” the genius farm owner, believes he can fix anything “if’n he puts his mind to it.” And he is quite competent at fixing most things around the farm. Plumbing is simple, isn’t it? Just pieces of pipe, metal or plastic, put together much like a child’s Legos, right? Well, there is the copper pipe that has to be soldered. Not so simple, as it turns out.
If you step into the barn, you can observe trenches dug in the floor to access pipes so deep it looks like a battlefield in WW I. Mr. Fix It is on his hands and knees, “praying” multiple times a day to the plumbing god – or more like cursing the plumbing god. This job has become more a test of will – he WILL fix these plumbing leaks or else!
Fortunately, there’s a hardware store just a few miles down the road in Ellendale, where Mr. Fix It has become a fixture. As each part breaks, he goes back to the hardware store to get yet another piece of pipe, coupler, or some other piece of plumbing equipment. He’s keeping their plumbing department in business.
Unfortunately, the site of the current plumbing break is in front of one of the horse’s stalls – and the horse cannot get into his stall for meal time. The first day he was quite confused as to where to go, and quite frustrated about having to eat his meals in another stall that is not his “home.” After several days of the change, he reconciled himself to the temporary move, but is still dissatisfied with the new accommodations. He’ll be glad when he can get back into his old, dark, cool stall so he can get his sleep in the corner unbothered by flies.
As you may have guessed, the original plumbing leak was in the bathroom. When Mr. Fix It ripped out the bathroom floor, the inevitable termite damage was discovered, and Mr. Fix It decided he would replace the floor using Cypress, which termites find distasteful. In the Mid-South, Cypress trees are common, and we even have some on our farm. But most of the Big Box lumber stores are headquartered in Ohio or Pennsylvania, and their lumber comes from places like British Columbia. This gives Mr. Fix It an opportunity to peruse one of his favorite sites on the web, the Craigslist farm and garden section. A couple of contacts later and he’s off to a remote on-site lumber mill near the Hatchie River, where Mr. Fix It swaps tall tales with the workers about hunting, as he purchases the six boards he needs to fix the floor.
At this point we’re just hoping the plumbing issue can be repaired before cold weather hits. You’ve heard the commercial about the construction contractor who says we’ll come to your home, tear up everything, and then disappear for two weeks? That’s the state of our barn: with the bathroom floor ripped out and half the barn aisle trenched with standing water, mimicking the WWI trenches in Europe. Mr. Fix It likes a challenge.
