The First Day of Spring

Yes, indeed. Spring arrived at 1:32 p.m. this afternoon and I have been busy greeting its arrival, although not in the manner that I had expected. When spring arrives, a young man's fancy turns to...to..., I forget to what a young man's fancy turns, but my fancy turns to thoughts of kayaking. However, we must first accomplish our garden tasks. My assigned task was to continue to rake out the flower beds, but first I decided to turn on the outdoor water faucets, which consists of simply turning on the outdoor water faucets, except the one by the garage. On that one I had installed a union (plumbing gizmo) so I could separate the pipes in the winter to avoid freezing and splitting of pipes and all sorts of mayhem. I put pipe dope on the connections and tightened them then went to turn on the water. Of course there was a drip, so I went back into the cellar to turn off the water, came back out, disassembled the whole thing, put on more pipe dope, reassembled the contraption, went back down the cellar to try again. Still a leak. I should add at this point that turning on the water to this particular line requires one (me) to climb on top of the clothes dryer and reach down behind it, almost to the floor to get at the valve. In addition to this exercise, I discovered that I had two bottles of pipe dope. On one, the in bottle brush had detached itself from the jar lid which serves as a handle. On the other, the brush had detached itself from the tube that holds it to the lid. It was interesting.

Water was leaking from two spots that I could see, so I decided that I needed a new thingy that joins the pipes together, but I didn't want to go to le depot de la home, because I don't like to do that on weekends. I have often told our children that they should never buy anything until they first check with me to see if we might have a spare one here to give to them. It has frequently proved true that they could go down into my parts department/supply room/museum and come up with what they needed. Even one of our neighbors, also not wanting to go to the Home Depot, came and asked if I had a piece of 1/2 inch conduit. Of course I did, so I gave him a piece. So, I went down there myself and, not surprisingly, I came up with just what I needed, a 3/4 inch nip (that's what it says on the plastic wrapper that it was in). Getting the old nip off wasn't as easy as finding the new one, but I succeeded, thanks to my renewed weight training. I then reassembled the whole mess, went down into the cellar, climbed on the dryer, reached down behind it and turned on the water. I have to say that I was fairly pessimistic by this time, but voila, no leak. My next step was to get out all of the hoses and attach them, which I did without incident.

Spring comes upon us quickly every year it seems. Only last week we were dealing with rain and floods and a few short weeks before that, a major snow storm. Then, all of a sudden, here comes spring. I like spring, but it brings with it a plethora of chores that must be done now. Not in a couple of weeks or months, but right now. Most of those chores have to do with gardening and outside maintenance. There are also the other handy person things to do that were saved until spring. What happens to me is that I don't to the spring things because of other things, so I say I will do them in the fall, which, of course, I don't do, but there's always next spring. Happy spring.