The tree's gotta go

So...we had this problem. Everytime I'd do laundry, the basement toilet would overflow, flooding the bathroom and the carpet. Adam snaked the sucker and it worked, until the week after he left for his current deployment, which left me in a predicament. Hmmm, snake it myself or call for help. If you know me well, you know I let Adam handle most everything, so I picked up the phone and called my home teacher. Dear Bro Popham removed my toilet and ran some wire down the pipes, but nothing came up. Meanwhile, Slavka volunteered to do my laundry and gave me the number of her plumber.

Dreading the price I'd have to pay for a plumber to come out, I put it off for a week. I finally prayed and then called. The lady I talked to told me that I might have a bigger problem than I'd anticipated. She directed me to call the county and have them check the main water in front of my house.

They came out within the hour. A bitter middle-aged man showed up on my door step complaining about working overtime on a Friday night. I apologized and he went to work. After sending a video cam down the main pipe in front of my house, he discovered the problem. About 8 feet down, a tree root had made it's way into my plumbing, blocking the whole circumference of the pipe. He attacked it for a while with a spade on the end of a snake, but it didn't seem to do anything. He sensed my worry and told me everything was going to be ok. With a smile on his face he assured me that the Lord was on my side today and I was about to receive some blessings. He then called some other guys to come out.

About an hour later, some new friends from the county showed up complete with backhoe and dumptruck. It was now after dark and I was sure they were all disgruntled govt employees. They fussed around the front yard for a while and I heard them arguing outside. "You gonna tell her?" "No...you tell her." A moment later there was a knock at the door. "You want the good news or the bad news?" The good news was they weren't going to be digging that night. Bad news...they'd be digging a whole lot the next morning. We'd have to say goodbye to our tree and possibly our front steps.



I was ok with the tree gone, but Josh had a melt down the next morning. You see, our tree is the climbing tree of the neighborhood. It has just the right height of branches for the little ones to get up and swing from. Well, not any more. The tree was gone by noon, and so was our flooding problem. The kids loved seeing the guys at work.



Felling the tree




If you look closely you can see the root sticking out of the pipe.