When Friends Come Through
Sometimes the simple things in life become overwhelming when we are alone. Glenn Townend shows how a friend in our time of need is often a friend indeed.
The home we live in, in the hills of Perth (Western Australia), was once an orchard. Our land has what I thought was an original bore. This was connected to our watering reticulation system by a pump.
The pump recently died and in the middle of a summer heat wave. I’m no tradesman but I dream of being the best handyman around.
Doing odd jobs is fun and challenging—and usually saves time and money. So I pulled out the pump and took it to a repair place.
Three days later, I was told that I needed a new pump. I bought that but it also needed new fittings to be able to connect to the bore and retic system. These connections took me five shops and five days to track down.
Meanwhile, the weather was scorching my wilting garden and finding time to hand water was difficult.
When I had the necessary parts, I connected everything up and primed the pump but it would not prime—all I got was air. And I tried this multiple times with less patience each time.
I decided to pull up the pipe from the bore—but this happened too easily.
The first length came up unattached to the rest. The rest of the pipe—we thought—was down the bore. Lucky me!
A work mate had helped me before with advice. He came to have a look a day or so later. He suggested I contact a mutual friend and bore driller.
He could come four days later and had equipment to get the rest of the pipe out of the bore.
Meanwhile, the lawn was browner and the plants were droopier.
This guy was helpful. He discovered I didn’t have a bore after all and the water was pumped from an old well.
How dumb was I? Every piece of dirt that fell down the hole had made a splash before! This meant I just needed to buy a new pipe and a foot valve and I would be ready to pump to my needy garden.
Three shops later, I had a foot valve—the only one in Perth that would fit, I was told. I was ready and determined to fix it.
Wrong again! It wouldn’t fit down the hole to the well. A borrowed crowbar from a good neighbour could not widen the hole. The cement top had a steel undercarriage and even my electric grinder could not access the steel to widen the hole.
In desperation five more days and I contacted a church friend, an orchard and retic specialist. Why I did not contact him earlier I will never know— Was it my self absorbed dream of being a great handyman? or the fact that I did not want to disturb a busy person who would see how inept I was? Anyway I was desperate as I was to go away the next day for a trip to outback Wstern Australia for 5 days, so he and his wife bought a foot valve that would fit down the hole and fitted it. And now the pump waters the whole garden beautifully with no help from me. In fact I don’t think I did much at all.
I am grateful for a caring and helping church community, of which all of those who helped me out are a part.
Those people were my blessing and I thank God for them.
So does my pump, lawn and plants! And I am a little less independent and a little more realistic about my abilities or more correctly, inabilites.
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