Agent Smith is very, very water conscious. Since we’re due to have the well tank replaced next week, he didn’t want to waste the 10,000 gallons of water stored in the tank, so he shut off the pump Saturday night.
Fast forward to today, Friday. I got down to the property to meet with contractors and sort out the deck that has to go. No water at all. The pump had drawn down 5000 gallons in a week–not what we expected and we’re going to have to sort out where that water actually went (although I suspect, based on the large amount of mud, much of it leaked from the rusty tank we’re about to replace). Still I thought, no problem, I’ll just hike (and I mean hike) up the hill to the control station and turn the pump back on. So I hiked up, tossed the breaker back on, and…nothing. So I trudged down the hill, grabbed some screwdrivers from the garage, and hiked back up to check out the various controls. I cleaned out piles upon piles of bug carcasses, tried the breaker again, and…still nada. Then I called the people who will install the new tank and serviced the well over the years for the previous owners. I explained what I’m experiencing and a short while later, one of their guys showed up. He didn’t have to trudge up to the well as he just drove his pickup up the hill to it, and a short time later he returned. Turns out I hadn’t done a good enough job of cleaning out the bug corpses and one of them had shorted a wire.
Once we’re living down here permanently, we’re going to invest in a bug-proof enclosure for the well electronics.
In other news, I failed to make contact with our neighbors regarding the rogue horses. Today I put a letter in their mailbox asking them to please stop by or call me. We’re not insured for horses and they really need to not be on our land.