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​Starting my Fountain

3/30/2020

1 Comment

 
When I first moved into my house, I felt the strong need for a fountain to keep on my back patio. It has given me many hours of pleasant listening to the water bubbling over the rocks and back into the base. Two winters ago, I left it running in the winter and the water froze and burned out the motor. In the spring, Ben helped me get a new one set up. This year, I turned it off during the winter months, but now that it nearly feels like summer outside, even though it is still March, I wanted to get it going again.
 
This activity has proven to be more of a challenge than I bargained for. It wasn’t too difficult to uncover the outside faucets and attach the hoses. Then I managed to fill up the base. The tube connecting the motor with the top of the fountain had come loose, so I grabbed the motor and had a look. It just needed a fresh bead of caulk or whatever that stuff is and all would be ready. That’s when my troubles really began.
 
I had purchased a tube of this stuff some years ago in order to fix some damage to my shower. Apparently I hadn’t fixed it very well, because it now needed to be fixed again. I had found the tube in the garage, but when I tried to squirt out some stuff, nothing happened. I had discovered this problem some days back, but hadn’t taken the time to solve the problem. So, today I mended my ways and started trying to unblock the tube. After using a pin, a long needle, a pair of scissors and a paperclip, I finally managed to squeeze out enough to cover the places in the shower. However, by the time I had finished, I was squeezing it by putting my foot on it. As was inevitable, it started coming out the back instead of out the nozzle.
 
By now, it was all over my hands. I took my defective tube outside and started spreading some of the white goo on the tube. However, having finally accomplished that tricky task, the tube would no longer go into the hole on the motor. I couldn’t find where anything had broken off, but the nice smaller tube was no longer visible. I called on Ben, the engineer. He had a look while I went to get a screwdriver. After some digging, we realized the smaller tube had slipped inside the bigger tube. We were able to get that out, but still needed to get the goo around it. I squished and squeezed with all my might, and finally got enough on my finger to do the job. We left it to dry while Ben put away the screwdrivers and I went to wash my hands.
 
We’ve all been learning how to properly wash our hands in these days of the pandemic. I’m glad the COVID-19 virus isn’t like that white goo. I scraped it off one finger only to find it on the finger I was using to clean it off with. So, I’d start cleaning off that finger, only to find it back on the first one. After several minutes of this, I decided a paper towel was in order. I think I’ve got most of it off, but may yet have to unclog the sink.
 
In case you are wondering why things are taking so much longer to do even though you have so much time on your hands, well, this experience might provide an example. Be patient and keep moving forward. You can win in the end.
​

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1 Comment
Clene Nyiramahoror
3/31/2020 05:22:08 am

The invisible challenge is definitely harder to handle! Sorry about the difficulty to restore your fountain. Keep safe and keep trying!

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    After spending most of my adult life in Africa, it is time to re-discover my "home" country, the USA.

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