A change in plans...

Saturday did not go how I thought it would. It was not the Impressionist tableau of the day before... I had hoped to take my parents up to the Champlain lookout and for a nice hike in the woods, then to Wakefield for lunch, then another afternoon of reading and lounging under the trees in the backyard, then a delicious dinner of truffle oil risotto, lemon-baked fish, and salad with greens from our garden. But something about the best laid plans... We had just finished feasting on some delicious banana chocolate chip pancakes (and some "pancake hash" because I had used the wrong pan and everything stuck together. ugh...) and were about to set out for the day, when I happened to be in the basement just as someone upstairs flushed a toilet, and saw water come up around the floor drain, making a rather large puddle, which receded after a moment, but was a clear sign of trouble.

Trouble that quickly told us there would be no hike or lunch in Wakefield. After calling around for a plumber, we had someone show up, and they wanted 500 dollars to snake the drain! Yikes! So Mark rented a 50-ft auger from Home Depot for 35 bucks and decided to do it himself. Not exactly the activity I wanted my parents to have to deal with on their vacation weekend, but my dad was happy to help. So, for a few hours my mom and I avoided the stinky work and let them take care of it, and did they ever! Each snake hauled up a foul-smelling mass of fibrous roots, approximately 45 feet from the drain, clearly pinpointing the large maple at the end of our driveway. The drain was cleared two years ago in the same way, just before we moved into the house, so we will likely have to do this annually, but at 35 dollars a year, it's a worthwhile cost to keep things flowing. And we'll keep monitoring the drain to see if it will have to be dug up and replaced. 

I've always been conscious of the amount of water we use, but honestly I have completely taken for granted the lowly drain all these years, and how nice it is to be able to unplug the stopper and allow the water down rather than having to bail the water into buckets and take it to the backyard... 

But I couldn't help but wonder later that day, as I was bleaching the "spray zone" (major ewwww), what the Duchess was up to at that moment. Mopping up residual fecal matter, tree roots and other stanky drain matter? Unlikely.

After the auger was returned at 5pm, we began our regularly scheduled program and made our way up to the Champlain lookout as the late afternoon sun lent a dreamy haze to the vista, and made the green fields below look like velour. Then to Wakefield for dinner at Chez Eric's where we had a lovely meal in the garden under lights strung through the trees. I had the duck, which was served on a bed of beluga lentils, with roasted beets and goat cheese, and might honestly be the best thing I have ever eaten. Divine. So all's well that ends well?