Toilet problem, storms and painting

Fair warning - there are some pictures of a failed toilet vacuum pump below. Trust me, the smell was worse than what it looked like.

Angela about to beat me at AirFlix

Bekir removes the wooden frame

What we found when we looked in the pump house

Bekir removes the broken pump

Cleaning the pump off

Angela working in the raised beds

Last night Angela and I had a really fun game of AirFlix as we try to get back into the habit of gaming at least once a week. She beat me, of course. This morning was a bright enough start to the day and Bekir and Halil went out to remove the last of the wooden frame around the new sink area before going to work on the chicken enclosure but then they noticed some leakage from around the pump house and that was when the day got bad. It turned out that one of the pumps had a problem and was ejecting into the pump house, not down its hose into the reservoir. Not good! There was a lot of excrement pooled up under the pumps and I stuck to help while Bekir removed both pumps, then spent an hour or so cleaning up. We shovelled as much as we could into a bucket so it wouldn't get washed down by the roots of the tree but it was a long job to clean it up. At one point I was checking the drains and suddenly a snake shot out of the pipe and disappeared at high speed down by the roots. It was a pretty big one, but probably only a rat snake. Anyway, after cleaning everything up Bekir took the broken pump apart and we found that when we flushed one or two baby wipes (and we really did it only once or twice before realising it was stupid) this eventually made its way into the inner workings and caused a plastic "bellows gasket" to split. So the pump is fine but we do need to find a new one of these gaskets which is proving a little challenging but I'm sure we'll find one eventually. Right now we have no working toilets as the working pump hasn't been fitted back in (it stormed very badly so was way too wet and wild to work outside) so it is back to sawdust in a bucket until tomorrow. Angela, meanwhile, was in the garden doing lots of weeding and she spent pretty much all morning out there, though I was able to get back to my desk eventually.

Starting to paint the steel

The last few to be painted

Halil sweeps in the garage

Rosie cuddling Xena on Angela's lap

During dinner time the forecast rain came in and it got heavier and heavier with some very close thunder and lightning - it was very dramatic. Bekir and Halil and lifted all the steel into the chicken house in the morning and now, as planned, through the rain they painted preserving paint onto it and got it all done. They were so quick that they had spare time and so Halil took it on himself to sweep out and tidy the garage! What a guy. Rosie was full of beans when she got home from school and helped Angela cooking dinner but also cuddled Xena a lot.

So there it is; the forecast is better for tomorrow so hopefully we'll be back on track again. Thanks for reading.