Moses says to Noah "We shoulda dugga deepa one"

All the water at the main farm starts at the spring. It moves laterally over to the basement of the old farmhouse. From there it is pumped and pressurized and split. One pipe for the house, one for the barns. The cows need an unfreezable water source in winter. The Watering Hole customers need their delicious watery nectar. The old dairy barn demanded gallons upon gallons of water for the cleaning of dirty animals. About three weeks ago cousin Brad noticed that we had a new little stream appearing from nowhere and running though the barnyard. One of the 30yr old pipes had failed.

“Dig down and find it and uncover both ends and replace it.” says my Dad blithely. Because it’s so easy when you say it. Pipes are laid two and a half or three feet down to keep them from freezing in the winter. The split occurred at the old barnyard entrance. Where for years and years tractors laden with hay and shit drove back and forth, requiring load upon load of gravel in place to keep from forming a giant mudhole just there. So topping off the completely sticky Ohio red clay was a four inch frosting of an exceedingly well compacted gravel and dirt mix.

It took the two of us (and we are nothing if not strapping) young lads two days of shoveling and spud-barring and mattocking and post-hole digging to unearth the twenty-one foot length of pipe-to-be-replaced. Rusty helped. It was about 2:30 pm on the second day when we had revealed it all. It was then we realized that we knew nothing about replacing a pipe. On cue, Rusty’s dad stops by and tells us. And leaves us with an entirely necessary pipe cutter. Sometimes the gods are watching.
We went to the local hardware store and were convinced of the merits of plastic. I’m sure my dad will be less than impressed if the plastic does in fact not last another thirty years. ah well.