Yesterday the section of water main under our yard exploded and water came gurgling up out of the ground. You can see ‘old faithful’ there, under the DANGER orange stripey thing that the Water Department put over it in lieu of a repair. To the right of it are the remains of our tomato patch. We were told that the utility would soon bring in back hoes, ditch witches, trench wenches, dirt flirts and other earth moving gear and tear some shit up and the tomato garden was right in the way. I tried removing the fencing and stakes carefully but is soon became apparent that the tomato plants were fucked… so I just tore it all out, apologizing to the plants as I did so. We now have a big bucket of green tomatoes. Hopefully the deer and rabbits will eat what remains before the water company arrives and grinds.
Curiously enough, even though the water is geysering out of the ground, our water still works. Go figure. The one thing I am thankful for is that the break is clearly on the outside of my watermeter. I’d hate to be paying for those thousands of gallons of wasted water.
My neighbor explained how the repairs will progress since this happened in his front yard a few years before we moved in. “First they will shut off the water and tear up the ground and determine that the only part of the main that requires replacement is the part that broke. They will replace that little bit and turn the water back on and, almost immeadiately, the rest of the pipe will disintigrate under the increased pressure. They will then turn off the water again, tear up the rest of your yard and replace the rest of the pipe.” Sounds about right.
Luckily for us, we are slightly uphill from the neighbors and their front yard is now a muddy lake.
Update: The pipe is fixed and part of the yard looks like someone had a tractor pull in it. The former tomato plot is 100% gone so I don’t have to feel bad about fucking up the plants. I guess the grass will go back, but I’m pretty uninterested in having a quality lawn. Really, it’s just a place for our dogs to take a piss.