Busted Pipe Lemonade

You know that expression, "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade"? It happens all the time when you live on a farm. The lemons, anyway. Making lemonade is where you need to get creative.

One example: in July, we get inundated with Japanese Beetles. They wreak a horrible toll on grape vines, to the point where I wonder why I bother trying to grow grapes organically around here at all. I'll post more about it in July, but we've developed a partial solution: put out lots of pheromone traps, drown the beetles we catch, and feed them to the chickens. Free protein!

More recently, we had a piece of drainage tile break. It's one of those plastic pipes, buried about 2-3 feet down, that helps drain the property. I noticed a big puddle developing in a certain spot, and from time to time bubbles would appear. When that spot never got dry, I knew the water had to be coming from below. I got out a shovel, and spent some time excavating the area. Eventually, I found the tile---and, sure enough, could feel a small hole in the top of it. As soon as I'd bail all the water out of the hole, more would bubble out of the pipe. Grrrrr.

Eventually, I'm going to have to dig a much larger hole and expose the whole pipe so it can be fixed. But for now, I've been trying to make lemonade. With this constant puddle of water, I don't have to take water to the chickens and ducks! At all!

Or so I've told myself for the last couple of weeks. Now, my wife has reminded me of two things: (1) kids have a remarkable way of falling into puddles of water, and two feet is plenty big enough for drowning; and (2) standing water is a prime breeding ground for mosquitoes. She wants my lemonade puddle gone. Yesterday.

Looks like the Yeoman Farmer will be getting his shovel out again this weekend...