Poop and Pine Needles...
It's a brand new year and like the once cheery Christmas decorations all around me, I feel wilted and tired. I ran the dishwasher this morning, threw a load in the washing machine and filled the deep tub for a relaxing bath to start the day and the new year in efficient relaxation.
And what a start it was! As I opened the bathroom window to let in some cool air to clear the steam a bit quicker, my senses were immediately assaulted by the smell of sewage that I was very familiar with having witnessed several septic inspections first-hand in my real estate career. I immediately looked to the side of the deck where Jim had dug out the hatch to the holding tank just yesterday as we were waiting for our local pumping contractor to swing by in the next week. The neat and tidy hole in which the concrete lid had been clearly exposed just this morning, was now filled with murky water mixed with questionable contents and a silent row of bubbles rising on each side of the lid. My heart sank. We have been through several Septic Sagas before and the start of 2023 had officially started with some residual pomp and circumstance from 2022 that I was hoping not to deal with anymore.
Don't get me wrong. I love where we live and I am a huge advocate of living on septic. The savings are tremendous, it forces you to live and use products that are environmentally friendly and makes you conscious of what your family uses and how much. I had been warned many years ago never to run the dishwasher and washing machine simultaneously and had been pushing the envelope for over a decade. The rains we have had, along with the thaw of a lot of snow from this Christmas storm, made for one mean cocktail of unmentionable ingredients.
While Jim worked on the septic in his festive red checked outdoor coat, I went to work taking down the decorations that had given me such joy just days ago. When I got to the living room, I looked at the natural evergreen wreath hanging behind the piano and reached up to take it down. Just brushing against it caused a shower of needles to fall and I immediately re-evaluated the situation to see what approach would cause the least bit of damage. I ended up using a large tablecloth to wrap the wreath in and take it outside. Once on the driveway, I shook it out of tablecloth and was left with the carcass of a dried out wreath reminiscent of the overdone turkey in Christmas Vacation when Chevy Chase cuts into it and the whole thing explodes in a poof of dry air. That famous turkey had been dry, but my wreath was drier.
I went inside to sweep up several loads of the offending needles and as I passed the hall mirror, I did a double-take. What was that weird smudge under my eye? I went in for a closer look and noticed that a pine needle had stuck to my cheek without me even noticing.
Pine needles and poop aside, I am reminded that the holidays and the start of a new year prompt us that we cannot slack in the maintenance of such a crucial part of rural living. Our kids have endless showers and as mentioned, I had become sloppy in how many appliances were running and not thinking of our poor, possibly antiquated septic. When you entertain as much as we do during the holidays, the water consumption is astronomical. Serving several large dinners equals loads and loads of dishes that had to be washed. With the kids at home, our washing machine has not stopped running. We need to be conscious of what we consume, how much we consume and how we deal with it. So with the light smell of poop lingering in the air, we sat our kids down and reminded them to start taking the short showers we used to have. My husband had been buying better quality toilet paper for the last while and this also plays a huge roll (no pun intended) in how efficient our septic is. We need to go back to the TP that was meant for this system. It's a small sacrifice to not waking up to a backed up system in which your whole house can smell like the bottom of a stagnant puddle.
Now, as we await the call back from our local septic contractor, things have settled down a bit. The hatch lid is again visible, indicating that the murky water had drained on its own a bit. But we are apprehensive and cautiously going about the first day of the new year. I have to laugh and am a bit grateful that we did not experience this when we had the house full of guests during the holidays. I'm going to take down the artificial tree in the living room next. But the real tree downstairs will have to wait. I'm done with poop and pine needles for today...
Lolita Schimann Hale
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