Yesterday morning, I let my seven freshly groomed Poodles out on the deck where they all immediately ran into the back yard, and I heard splashing. Splashing? I looked over the deck rail and saw that the yard had about half-a-foot of water covering it . . . and the Poodles were having a blast!

The well pipe between the house and the pump had sprung a leak . . . or should I say a gusher. Of course, my husband Dave had to fix it himself (No one else could do it correctly, right?), so we were without water all day. He turned it on awhile in the evening even though it was still leaking so we could fill buckets for the toilets.

Oh, it just gets better. In addition to the “lake” in the backyard, I now also have a hole in the front yard about 10 feet around and 8 feet deep, mud-ball Poodles, and a mud-splattered house.

The reason we have a 10' x 8' hole is because my thrifty husband decided to rent a backhoe to try and find the leak. Then, he figured as long as he had the backhoe, he would go ahead and dig footings for a new concrete dog yard and new front deck. Using floodlights, he started working at 11:00 p.m. Unfortunately, he did not consider that there would be buried wires, gas lines . . . stuff like that. My own personal Tim Allen a.k.a. Tim the Toolman Taylor!!

At 3:00 a.m., the utility company was here. This morning, the phone company was still working on the phone line. On the bright side, I did get all the dogs re-groomed.

Oh, yeah . . . they are predicting snow and ice through Sunday. Yippee! No mud for at least a few days. A bottle of wine is on ice. . . .

Author: Denise Spotila
Brookside Casa
Standard Parti Poodles

When a well pipe between the house and the pump springs a leak, keeping the Poodles from playing in the flooded water was the least of Denise Spotila's problems.