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Our uninvited bad-news gremlin, Duende, showed up on our doorstep once again, interrupting our adventures. It all started with a green card that we received in the mail from our township. It reminded us that our mandated bi-yearly septic pumping was due this summer. I called the guy that has performed this lovely ritual over the past decade. He has warned us that our antique steel septic tank, installed in 1979, was rusting. Steel, because of this tendency to rust, has since been replaced by concrete tanks.
It was this summer that our guy discovered a hole in the bottom of our tank. Fortunately, the top and the sides were still intact. If that would have rusted through we would have had a major catastrophe on our hands - a sewage sinkhole. Anyway, he said it was time to replace the tank.
It turns out that replacing a tank requires several rather time-consuming steps. We have to first dig up (pun intended) a septic designer. This is a guy that checks out your property, your soil, your ground water flow, etc. and draws up the unique system just for you. Our soil, thank goodness, is sand. It perks. This means that we shouldn’t need an expensive mound system or a bothersome holding tank.
Next you need to get permits galore. Then send out bids to contractors, Then dig. Then pay for it. Best case scenario? $6,000. Yikes. Not only is this time consuming little project cutting into our idyllic adventure time, it is cutting into our adventure funds.
OK, I know that this is way more septic info then you bargained for, but it does explain the slowdown in our August adventures. Still, we have managed to get a few licks in. After digging up our designer, we returned to St. Germain for some ebiking, boating, ATVing, hiking, and motor biking.
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