And now the (w)hole story

The margaritas are helping heal our bruised egos...me for losing my phone, Holly for tipping her kayak and Ras for not being able find the phone. While we wait for RipNET to arrive it begins to rain. RipNET's only job today is to check the hole that has been dug for the concrete base for the internet tower. They had instructed us to have the hole dug to the exact size of 4 ft long by 4 ft wide by 4 ft deep. However, the size of said hole got lost in translation by the time it got to the guy actually digging the hole. The hole ended up being 5 ft long by 7 ft wide and 5 ft deep. Wow, that's going to be a lot of concrete.

The rain is coming down quite hard now and we are enjoying our margaritas under the canopy at Priscilla. A massive amount of rain is pouring off the corner of the canopy and it occurs to me we should be collecting rainwater rather than paying to have it trucked in. I find one bucket and the container of the pressure weed sprayer we have been using as our shower, to catch the rainwater. Both are full in minutes. I recruit my sister to assist in getting the water into the holding tank. She is needed to hold the tea towel filter since there is plenty of pine needle debris in the collected water. "Bring your umbrella, sister."  I really don't know why I had her bring the umbrella because for all the water Holly was able to keep off her head with the umbrella I poured 10 times that amount down the front of her trying to pour slowly enough for the tea towel filter to handle the water. She's a good sport...no doubt about it.

Filling the water tank with collected rainwater proves to be a real soaker so Holly abandons her umbrella all together.

The RipNET guys arrive and they are surprised to see the size of the hole. The man we left in charge of supervising the dig must have thought a crew of men were going to need to get in the hole to build a 4x4x4 form for the concrete and that's why it ended up being so much bigger than needed. In reality the concrete is to be poured directly into the hole in the ground, no form required. RipNET gives us three options: fill the hole, as is, with concrete and pay almost 3 times the quoted price for the concrete, build the form with all the added material expense that goes along with that, or fill in half the hole with the dirt that we just paid some guy with a machine to remove. I weighed my options, thought about the very expensive booboo I had made earlier in the day by letting my phone go for a swim, and picked up the shovel.

One hand-me-down fixed wireless internet receiver = wobbly, sore legs
One over-dug hole for internet tower base = blistered hands
Internet service at Priscilla in the very near future = priceless

Mimi

p.s. My phone is still swimming with the fishes.