Thread: Getting to be an expensive week

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We moved to a new house in 1999 to get a single level for my wife's knee problems (and then fixed up the upstairs after her second successful double knee operation) and the ground around the house was graded by a guy on a tractor with a blade; it seemed innocent enough. Then two years ago without any known cause the lid of the septic tank collapsed, probably cracked by the grading tractor. Well our cat was attracted by the odor and FELL IN! Then the cat got out somehow and wanted to come into the house!!!! Fortunately I lassoed him with some clothesline and tied him to a fence post while I played a garden hose over him. Of course he doesn't like water so he would take two mighty steps with the small slack in the line, leap forward and fly through the air with the rope bringing him back. We had to get a complete new tank since the sides were also cracked and we drenched the cat with liquid soap several times and finally brought him in and tied him to a faucet in a bathtup and lathered him up some more. The tank had to be dug out and buried in a hole in our woods and replaced by a new tank which we now guard carefully against tree trimming trucks and the crane that came in to remove the two pine trees that fell on our roof during Huricane Isabel several years ago. Fortunately we have enough wilderness forest area on our lot for the burial of the old septic tank. Strangely our tank is in the front yard due to a better slope there and for whatever reason the grass is not greener over the tank; maybe there is only a few inches of dirt over the lid because the grass does poorly over the lid! Here is a picture at Easter last year, some 18 months ago, when we really only had that one late snowfall. Although the house is relatively new it is getting to be the time for the first repaint that I am not looking forward to. Maybe I can put it off till next Spring.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder