Murky Waters

Well, it was a rather exciting weekend...in a bad way.

On Saturday, I decided not to go play in the woods, mostly because of my knee.  I think I made the right choice regarding the knee, and I stayed home and fetched tools for Tino while he tried to find a vacuum leak in the truck.  He did not find the vacuum leak, but he reset the timing (which requires two people) and changed the fuel filter.  The truck runs better now, but the timing may still be off and there may still be a vacuum leak.  

Late on Saturday, our water turned seriously ugly.  We were hoping that it was merely some blip in the well and that we would wake up on Sunday and it would all go away.  It did not.

The water is suddenly full of sediment, and there was so much of it that it clogged up the intake on the washing machine.  This meant that the washer had to be taken apart and the filter screen cleaned.  We did that.  Then, we decided to try a whole house filter.  This, of course, requires driving to Winchester.

Both Home Depot and Lowe's were out of the heavy duty filter that will do sediment and carbon-whatsits filtering, so we bought two filters and a bunch of plumbing parts.  Need I say that the installation didn't go smoothly?  When does any freaking home improvement task go smoothly?  Never, that's when.

Worse than that, the water is still cloudy.  Now it wont clot up our plumbing (the toilet tank had a 1/4 inch of mud in it, BTW) or our appliances, but we still can't bring ourselves to drink it.  Tino tasted it and it tastes fine.  I drank some before the filter and it tasted not bad but like water drunk from a stream in the woods.  Like non-specific minerals or something.

We tested the water for all kinds of crap, and there's nothing wrong with it.  There's a little copper and a little iron and the Ph is 7, which is fine.  We still have to wait for the bacteria test to complete -- it has to try and grow or something, but I kinda doubt there's bacteria in it.  Our well is at about 1000 feet of elevation and water does not flow up hill.  There is no livestock or farming above us, so I kinda doubt there's coliform bacteria in there.  There are no nitrites or nitrates either, another agribusiness by-product (I assume).  It's not alkaline, and our water isn't even hard any more, which is...interesting.  It used to be kind of slippery.  Now...not.  

I have no idea what we'll do if the bacteria test is negative.  We may call the county anyway, just to see if anyone else has complained about the water table on Green Hill.

At this point, it's a mystery.

For my last couple of long walks, I've been driving down to the south part of Reston where I can walk long distances completely away from roads and under tree cover.  I can't find anywhere to do that up here, for whatever reason.

Today, I walked the entire length of the Walker Nature Center, which I had never done before.  I saw a pheasant and a whole bunch of cardinals and blue jays and a couple of ducks.  Only the pheasant was interesting -- The other things are all over the place here anyway.  It's all wetlands and open down at the Twin Branches end.  I didn't know that, so it was kind of a surprise.  There are some interesting water plants down there, like Jack-In-The-Pulpits, for instance.

I'm laying off the running because of my knee.  I'd rather run than walk, at least some of the time, but I really don't want to injure myself.  I have grand plans for my knees this spring and summer, after all.

I went to Galyan's after my walk so that I could try on new footwear for hiking/walking.  My toes are hitting the front of my current NB820's, which are what I wear now, and my right big toe nail is now bruised again.  (don't even get me started on how pissed I am about that and what the inevitable result will be).  I liked the NB 973GB, but I couldn't bring myself to shell out $100 for them today.  I need to be sure I want to switch to a shoe for hiking instead of a boot.

I have hiked in shoes, and with my new, lighter gear, it's totally doable as long as I'm walking often and keeping the muscles around my ankles in use and toned, so it's not that.  My Raichles are like old friends now or something.  They never hurt my feet.  Ever.  The problem is they are starting to separate from the sole, and all the lace grommets are rusted, so I need to face the fact that they could stand to be replaced.  I'm also just not sure about practical matters like what happens when you walk through boot sucking mud.  I mean, that happens if you do long distance trips.

I'd also like to know if they are any less of a misery to walk around it wet.  Since the weigh less to begin with, I'm hoping they are.

I guess I need to ask around on some lists.

Oh, and my sleeping bag came today, but I don't have it.  I was here when the postman came, but he didn't ring the doorbell, he just stuck a note on the door that he'd tried to deliver it.  Bastard.

And since I got home at 5pm, it was too late to go get it.  Now I have to do that in the morning and wait all day for work to be over so I can open it up and play with it.

I am not amused.