The water doth flow

After finishing the connections and turning on the water for a test... the gurgling and bubbling of the air could be heard in the lines as the water surged forward.  As I stood in the trench with the soil piles towering over my head I had this feeling of impending doom...

The wind was whipping ahead of the approaching rain (rain that has fallen now for 6 days straight since that day) and I had a clear mental picture of all the fittings leaking and spraying me in the trench turning the close quarters into a muddy labyrinth.  The bubbling in the lines continued as the air escaped and Kelli asked from the other end of the phone "how are things going?".

Like an overgrown gopher I shuttled around inside the trenches from one T connection to another to another to a hydrant.  The water had made its way through the newly installed pipe and so far - there were no signs of any leaking going on...  which was terrific!  "Everything seems to be ok" I responded to the question on the phone, "just need to test the hydrants now".

At a young age you learn that things always go down a hill...  so why I thought, in this scenario, me standing in a nearly 6' deep trench and reaching up to turn on the water hydrant over my head would be different - I'm not exactly sure.  Let me assure you - gravity still works as expected when in a trench - and the water flowed in volumes (good thing) directly onto me (bad thing). Ehh - whatever - it works!

So with both hydrants tested Kelli turned off the water supply and I moved to bringing buckets of pea gravel over to fill the base where the frost free hydrants weep water out...  and to provide "cushion" to the places where connections were made.  The sky in the west was rapidly growing darker and darker...  the winds were picking up...  there was now a smell of rain on the air.

Like most things - when you dig a hole there are two ways to fill it in: the right way and the wrong way.  Due to the approaching storm and the few scattered droplets that were appearing on the hood of the tractor - I chose the wrong way.  You know - where you just push all the soil you can into the trench and then have leftover... yeah - and then wait for the settling to occur...

The picture I don't have  to share was as the drop frequency grew the small tractor went away and Big Blue came out to move a lot more soil a lot faster...

So - as it has sat for the last 6 days...  the project is well towards completion - 2 of the 3 hydrants are in place and operational...  there's another 60' of trench to be dug this weekend and the final hydrant to be installed.  We have had 6 days of rain since this point - so the trench has had the opportunity to settle some...  ever see the movie Tremors?