Post Sewer Recovery Begins

Just received--the first pictures of the post-sewer-installation garden recovery at the Magees.

Monique reports that all this took a huge amount of effort--first of all waiting for the city to finish the job with new dirt and grass seeding. But there was still time enough left over to take Katie on her first-ever canoe trip!

More pictures will follow as the garden gets finished, new decorative stone is laid to make a pleasing border, and the green turtle pump cover blends into a background of plants. But that arch! It's pleasing to behold.

Blue Cats in Hats

Over the last month or so, each time I came into Brigitte’s office wearing my gardening hat, she has wished to take a picture of me. I’m not all that photogenic—but when she looked at me as I sit in the chair I usually occupy, she saw a calendar page showing a much more handsome dude in a similar hat. Now this, now that interfered with actually snapping a shot. But August finally passed, and it was time to turn that calendar page. So I went off to get the camera. Herewith the results. The first picture shows me as I usually sit. The other one is posed—but I didn’t quite match the tilt of the blue dude’s hat myself despite trying very hard.

Katie in Traverse City

A picture that belongs on this blog too—Katie on the occasion when she took us all on a Traverse City vacation. But that was, alas, another year, another memory. Katie-admirers and afficionados of photo-touchups will know why this picture is here.

In Praise of Sewers

Happy days are here again!
Water flows freely at the Magee home again and we thought we'd share a few photos of the exciting sewer connection project, completed in a matter of hours today.

BEFORE:


AFTER:









It all started when John and Monique prepared for the installation on Sunday by taking out the garden by our front door.

Yes, that is a porta-potty behind Monique...

But the night view of the porta-potty is really the best one.

Sorry for the bad angle, John! We were too focused on digging up and hauling plants to think about photos until the job was almost done.

Then, a day earlier than we expected, which made it especially sweet, the professionals arrived with a small fleet of heavy equipment. They got started bright and early (before 8:00 am)!

A big hole was dug out by the street, after removing the mailboxes. This one was for the connection to the main line running down our street.

At the same time, another of our crack installation team began the horizontal drilling work to place a new pipe underground between our house and the main line at the street. He did it with a well worn machine called a Ditch Witch.

The horizontal drilling took only one hour with the old Ditch Witch.

While not a great picture, you can see from this shot how the Ditch Witch was used to tunnel all the way from the side of the house to the street in the background, where the other members of the crew were preparing the mainline connection.

The newly pushed (pulled?) pipe was immediately connected to the main line, out at the street. By the way, there are two pipelines visible in this photo, down in that hole, if you look carefully. The larger one is the main sewer line. The smaller one, right above where our new little pipeline comes into the hole, that's the gas line... Scary!

Connection made. Now, the pipe line is in -- but it isn't connected to anything on the other end, yet...

Here comes the grinder pump, don't think about that name too long... This is a pressurized system, not a gravity fed one, thus a machine to push water up hill is needed. But, we don't much like the name grinder pump and have decided to call ours a turtle pump. You'll see why in a bit.

I must tell you, the Bob Cat driver was amazing. He managed to drive that tractor through an incredibly narrow spot by our garage where power lines and the corner of the garage. There could not have been more than an inch of spare room on either side of the tracks.

Then, there were the overhead lines to worry about...

Here it is, the Turtle Pump.

And with the turtle pump ready to be buried, there were more big holes to dig. First, to collapse the old septic tank ...

... and then to bury new piping to connect the pipe coming out of the house with the new turtle pump.

That Bob Cat got a good workout.

Here, you see the turtle pump after it was lowered into place and the connection work began.

Three different connections had to be made to the turtle pump. The pipeline from the house, the line from the pump to the mainline, and an electrical connection to power it all.

After watching all of this carefully, Anna was ready to lend a hand when the time came to start refilling all the holes.

It was all hands on deck for the refilling.

The crew and the turtle pump. See why we call it the turtle pump? These guys were great. They arrived before 8:00 am and we were connected by 1:30 pm.

We could not be happier right now. The third load of laundry has just been started, dishes are being done, one shower taken and another about to begin.

Thanks very much, A & B, for the loan that made it possible to get this done so quickly! And thank you, too, dear French gang for your cheerful adaptations to the not so pleasant water conservation techniques required during the weeks proceeding our lovely new sewer connection.

Finally, thanks to all our dear friends and neighbors who graciously helped us get through this transition in numerous ways.

We'll post another photo or two once all the landscaping is done. In the meantime, remember to appreciate the mostly invisible infrastructure that underlies our lives.

Aristo

A Black Swallowtail Caterpillar discovered on one of our dill plants. This variety of butterfly likes carrot-type plants, thus including dill and parsely. For those seeking hard knowledge, this creature's Latin name is Papilio polyxenes.

Brigitte named him Aristo, based entirely on his heraldic appearance, transferred him to a pot, placed him under glass, and anticipated a genuine biological experience watching a real metamorphosis unfold. Aristo ate like champion; Brigitte fed him parsely and dill. He preferred dill but consumed the parsely too. 

After about a week of feeding, the huge catepillar then transformed himself overnight into this much smaller chrysalis. The structure hangs from the stem arched above it by the tiniest (and here invisible) pairs of white tendrils.

Another week passed. Suddenly, sometime between noon and three-thirty in the afternoon, unobserved by human eyes, Aristo escaped from its small green hull and unfolded its glorious plumage as shown here. Note the two eyes, Here's Looking at You, that no doubt make birds hesitate before disturbing this magnificence. The photograph is through the plastic container that then still held Aristo.

Here is another view. In this one the top portion of his hull is visible at the top.

We transported Aristo fifty miles to the Magee Domain on the Shores of Lake Wolverine. Here is Aristo less than a minute after his release into the wilds resting on a Black Eyed Susan.

By the way, we called him "he" without good rhyme or reason. It might have been a Lady. Aristo became a caterpillar in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan. As a chrysalis he travelled to Stratford, Ontario. We dared not leave him alone. Back home again, he turned butterfly—but then travelled another goodly distance before at last he was, as we say around here, "born free."

Wolverine Lake July 3rd Celebrations

Our Roof-Top Tomatoes

The view from the ground up by way of paying homage to our plants on the flat roof -- and the trees and sky beyond. This was a new attempt to make use of the sunshine up there. We have three other tomatoe plants on earth-level. Curious which will do better.