Eureka!
I’ve discovered the leak that OBVIOUSLY had to be somewhere. In my world that’s good news. How low can the bar get?
About 100 yards from my house, beyond the frost free hydrant in the chicken coop, there is another pipe. I hadn’t realized it was actually connected to the system. A mistake that’s more reasonable than you’d think; this place has been modified by a zillion generations of farmers who built things at random, let some of what they built fall down, and generally considered building maintenance a sign of weakness.
It’s just a hose sticking out of the ground near a fallen fence. Stuffed in the hose was a stick. (I’m not making this up.) Somehow the stick ejected. Presumably this was caused by freezing and cooling cycles but it’s been stable for as long as I’ve been here so why now? I prefer to think that zombie squirrels did it.
The good news is that the ice rink it created is not inside my house.
The bad news is that it’s 10 degrees (unseasonably warm but still cold enough to freeze the line clear to the center of creation), it’s already dark, and my magic wand is out for repairs. I’ve got to invent a solution. Now! Adios folks; during times like these I can’t be dinking around with the internet.
I’ll save this post with settings to hit the blog later. If I’m found frozen to the ground in spring; you know what happened. (But don’t overlook the possibility of zombie squirrels.)
Shove the stick back in the hole.
Drink whiskey.
Wait til Spring.
That’s what the monkeys who used to own this house did.