But it was not to be.
I had been up for about an hour, preparing the morning coffee, setting the breakfast dishes, reviewing the morning Internet news, greeting the family as they woke up. Finally started the wiring job down in the basement. Pulled the step ladder in to the mechanical room and set it up right under the light where the work was to be done. Noticed that the floor around the sump looked a little darker than normal.
Noticed that the reason the floor around the sump looked a little darker than normal was that the floor around the sump was wet.And the sump was overflowing.
Obviously, there was a problem with the sump pump. Oddly enough, the sump pump has been on my mind these last few weeks as we've been hit with our spring rainy season. When the rains hit - and they tend to hit with a lot of water all at once - the sump pump gets a hard workout; coincidentally, the large volumes of water are typically accompanied by these other side-effects called 'wind' and 'lightning', which tend to play havoc with public utilities such as electricity. Unfortunately for us, our sump pump is powered by this self-same public utility, so when the utility is negatively affected by the wind and lightning, it is often also the case that our ground water table rises to the point where we need this public utility to prevent the flooding of our basement.
(It still makes no sense to me that houses in this part of the country are built with basements, when this part of the country is basically a waterlogged swampland; it's like begging to be flooded out every rainy season.)
There were big, fat, dark clouds covering the sky, threatening to rain again, so after showing James how to bail out the sump with a Tupperware bowl and a bucket, I hot-footed it over to the local Home Depot and grabbed another sump pump ($179!)
and ran back home and installed it and turned it on and waited to see what would happen.After about ten minutes, the level of water had sunk down to the first ring in the sump.
Another ten minutes, and it had gone down quite a bit more, almost reaching the bottom of the sump.
That water was really a-gurgling down there!
For the rest of the day, the pump ran lickity-split, and water spilled out of the yellow pipe (which is the main drain into the sump from the entire foundation) and the pump cycled on-off-on-off and neither one seemed to be getting an advantage over the other; but at least the floor looked like it was starting to dry up a bit.
I'm hoping this pump lasts a bit longer than the last one. Our first went out after only six months; the one that just died lasted only five years. But I must admit, it surprises me that any kind of motor can keep working like that while submerged under water for that long!Cataquarium
Even though it isn't the most important item on the agenda for today, taking into consideration all the varied projects throughout this house, it was the most important to me, since I'm annoyed past the point of reason by the cat's continuous disregard for the sanctity (and hygeine) of my garage. I've been complaining about it for years now, so it was time to try something different in my campaign to stop the cat from using the garage floor as his private litter box.
Presuming that part of his problem is due to his dislike of being in a confined (or seemingly confined) space, I modified the basic design of the Litter Box box (that is, a box enclosing the litter box, which allows the cat to go out into the garage but does not give him full access to the garage itself) so that it encases the litter box in a plexiglass cover. This gives the cat a full view of the garage, but does not allow him to actually set foot in it, other than the area set aside for his use.
It remains to be seen whether this is successful or not. Should it be the case that he is still opposed to the idea of using the litter box in an enclosed space, I'll have to come up with something else. But that something else will not include allowing him to wander freely through my garage, dropping his waste products randomly throughout the area. I've had enough of that nonsense.(Note that the children suggested it might be good to put some catnip within the box, as a way to soothe the cat's nerves when he detects his inability to go beyond the confines of The Box. It was quite helpful of them to suggest it, so this also is being tried.)
1 comment:
That is a cool cat set-up! Hope it works!
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