Allen Almighty

There has been a drought in the Southeast. A New York Times headline read, "Drought Saps the Southeast, and Its Farmers." NOAA's drought monitor issued a warning that the Southeast is in an EXTREME drought. As I travel south of Decatur there are signs much like those used in political campaigns that simply say, "Pray For Rain."

Yesterday it did rain and there is one man to thank. My husband Allen Stoner. Now I am not trying to be flippant about the drought, but Allen made plans to replace our sewer line on July 5th and 6th. It is a very simple process as he explained to me. "We need to be proactive and do this now so when we landscape our backyard we won't have to worry about undoing all of our landscaping to replace a sewer line." Plus, we will be doing this for "around $500-$750. If we hired someone to do this it would cost around $3000-$3500. Not only does he enjoy the manual labor, but he is SAVING us money! I was not real excited about this project; I am not that much of a planner. Plus, Allen and I have been married just 6 months shy of 20 years and I know all about simple projects and I am not very fond of them.

He did all the preparation-called the "first call" people who marked our gas line, sewer line and any other utilities which were buried. He had the concrete cut on our back porch($150) to make our sewer line accessible from our house connection. He and our friend, Ron (who has worked in construction since he was a youngster) ordered the backhoe ($250) for the one day digging job, and Allen purchased all of the pvc pipe($200) from the plumbing supply store and it was delivered on Thursday, July 5th. He bought the permit($35) from the city to do this job. Everything was in place. All they had to do was dig, put in the pipe, and call the city inspector and we would be back in business. The business of our regular routine. Work, play, enjoying our back yard.

Actually it was kind of fun. We checked into a local hotel($150) even though Allen and Ron thought it may not even be necessary. The sewer line would be hooked up and inspected soon. The project was only going to cost us $600 give or take. Ron refused to charge us, but of course we would be putting some money in his pocket.

Our 11 year old took a friend to the hotel. We swam, ate and watched movies. Our 16 year old went out of town with friends. Allen would come later.

Then, I got a call from Decatur Utilities. Something about a cut gas line($250). I am not sure why he got my cell number, but I am sure Allen was chagrined by this situation. I gave him Allen's cell and then promptly called Allen to see what was happening. Yes, they had cut the gas line with the backhoe and another contractor friend explained this was very common for any contractor to do this. As long as everyone was safe I was still fine with the project. The guys worked for a little longer and Allen came to the hotel exhausted, but looking forward to that good night's sleep one only gets with a day of manual labor.

The next morning we ate a good breakfast at the hotel's breakfast buffet(included in room cost) and we checked out. He and Ron got back to work. They got the line connected; the inspector came and gave us a thumbs up. It was a "popping the champagne" moment. All they had to do now was put all of the dirt back in the trench over the line. THEN, THE BACKHOE BROKE DOWN. As they waited for the backhoe people to come and repair the backhoe the sky began to look like rain. Normally, in a drought we would have been elated, but we were so close to the end of our project. As the backhoe guy finished his repairs it began to sprinkle, THEN CAME A DELUGE AND IT RAINED AND IT RAINED. Now we needed to order a load of gravel($350) so when the rain stopped they would need to put it in with the dirt so it would sift and not pack. Hopefully, this would prevent the dirt from crushing our new line. They worked until 9:50 p.m. (they had plans to stop at 10 p.m.) until a "neighbor" complained to the police about the noise. Not only were they trying to get the trench in our yard covered, but had the gravel dropped between our backyard and the backyard alley. We were trying to make sure the back alley was cleared.

Today is Saturday, July 7th. The news says it is a "lucky" day by number standards 07/07/07. We awaked to rain and it rained steadily all night.
Allen felt helpless. He said he felt like Napoleon invading Russia when he along with his French army waited and went in during unusually cold and freezing winter which led to his downfall. Allen and Ron's army may not survive the rain and the mud in the backyard. But, the rain did stop for now and the trench is buried. The gravel is gone from the alley. We still saved money.



Allen thought God said, Make your lanscaping look beautiful like a "park." I think he said, "Build an Ark."