Texas Tea

Long ago, this phrase referred to that most coveted liquid that used to spew from wells across the state: oil. Nowadays, and in the midst of this drought, Texas Tea is something else altogether: water.

For three days Jeremy and his father worked to carve almost 2000 feet of trenches using insufficient rental equipment. My mother-in-law and both of my parents came to help cement pvc together for the lines, and today - the day that has come to represent the pinnacle of our stupidity - we cleaned trenches with cups.

Details are for another time when my heat-stroked head cools down and once the grime and pain of this day are only a hilarious memory. At 4pm, we all sat together in the "shade" of a puny elm (with air temps of 105, shade is a theory, at best, in terms of the relief is provides). If you panned across the four of us in slow motion, you'd assume we'd just completed the Suez Canal. Each of our mouths hung open slightly, lips cracked and lined with dried spit and crud, eyes dull and crossed, hair so sweaty that salt had formed around each strand. The only words spoken were from Mom who observed that, "You know you're dirty when you realize you've been chewing dirt." I laughed, which turned into a sneeze, which caused two columns of sand to shoot straight from each nostril.

To those of you planning to DIY a water line, let me offer a word of caution: if you find yourself standing in a four inch wide knee-high trench, stiff roots poking out of each wall, and you've got a plastic cup filled with dirt in your hand - then something has gone horribly awry.

Judging by the photo I just received from Jeremy (who is still inexplicably connecting water lines), our combined efforts this weekend may have paid off:



Sweet, sweet, blessed water pouring forth from crudely connected pipes and set into trenches cut with a broken machine, and then cleaned by a bunch of suckers. Suckers with plastic cups.