Got to Say I Do Love Working

Ha! And if they'd only pay me for it! Got my water bill last week, about 10 days late, and bang, it was nearly $500. Much more than normal. So I spent this week turning the water on for half an hour in the morning, showering, washing dishes, cleaning the kitchen and filling gallon jugs of water, then going to the front of the property, at the water meter, and turning it off. Same routine at night when it's time to water the animals and time for Madeleina's shower.
Not bad, being I was either alone or with Madeleina. She rolls with the punches pretty well for a 12-year-old.
I was trying to figure out where the leak in the pipe was. I wasn't actually working, just thinking.
And dealing with the water company, who acknowledged that they sent out the bills late this month--the billing person was out for nine days, and so they'll adjust the bill for me. Better than that, they said they have a special water leak program. So I think they'll come through. (I love semi-rural Joshua for that neighborlyness.)
Last night I had a brainstorm: Why dig up the old pipe to find a leak? Why not just dig a new ditch from the water meter around the back of the house and lay a new line?
It did sound like a lot of shoveling given that I can't afford a ditch witch, but what the heck.
This morning I broke ground. Started at the water meter, under the red-tips that stand about 12 bushy feel tall, then switched to the back of the house. I dug a ditch about 40 feet long around the back porch and along a few feet of house side, then returned to the red-tips, set my sites 75 feet to the corner of the house, and started digging. Very heavy and muddy dirt, thoroughly soaked from all the recent rains, and thick with vegetative cover--weeds--that made it a pain in the neck. I decided to get half of it done before I quit for the day, and was nearly there when Italo, who didn't come home from school last week, came over and insisted on taking over after I finished my planned ending for the day.
What a treat to have a sidekick who's working while I'm now typing! The ditch will be done today, and then I'll go buy the pipe and couplings and set it up later this evening or tomorrow morning. The other work has been lonesome here: The painting of the house and porch, maintaining the animals when Madeleina's not here, and no one except Madeleina to even get excited about the work itself.
So while I love it, and while I told my back to back off from hurting till I finished, it is still glorious that my kid is gonna get the second half of the damned ditch dug today. Maybe not as deeply as I, so I might have to go out and dig it up another few inches, but so what? It's manly work again and that's just a good good feeling.
Now, if I just had a girl to admire the manliness of it all, eh?
Maybe next week I'll meet one.