Of Toilets and Toil

We have the first row of the retaining wall down, which is exciting. And we've found help to load the gravel when we're ready in the form of an unemployed friend of a friend who needs the money. Lovely.

But wait! Something's got to throw a wrench in our plans. This time, it was our toilet. As though punishing us for cleaning the bathroom, right after we mopped the floor, the toilet started leaking yucky toilet water from the bottom. Just a bit, but any toilet water on the floor is too much.

We thought it was the wax ring, which Alex has replaced many times in his previous life as a tiler. So we headed to the Lowes, grabbed a 4$ wax ring kit and got down to business. We jockeyed the toilet about a quarter inch when BOTH of the screws holding the tank to the bowl just snapped. Right in half. The nut and the part of the bolt inside the tank was rusted solid, and there was nothing outside. So, back to Lowes we go to get new bolts. On the first try, the bolts leak terribly. On try number three we get it right-ish and put on the wax ring and put the toilet back.

I should mention here that moving the toilet means there is open sewer in your house. It smells as awesome as that sounds. And yucky toilet water gets everywhere. And you have to scrape off the old wax ring, that's been leaking for a little while, so it has some old crap (literally) all over it.

Horribleness.

Anyway, we do all this, and the toilet was still leaking as of last night. This morning the problem seems fixed, but I'm not really buying it, so we're heading back to Lowes again to get the proper kitchen & bath caulk to use around the edge of the toilet.

Bah!

The culprit. After everything's been disinfected and put back together.

In Sunnier News:

Our daily harvest is still looking lovely.

I scored a huge load of perfect peaches at the farmer's market to be jammed and frozen today.

So many early girls that we can't eat them fast enough, and one baby eggplant

A friend bought box of HOT banana peppers that I pickled in return for one jar. We're already out of pint canning jars for the year, so these babies went in 1.5 pint jars. Alex refused to wear hand protection while chopping these suckers and two days later, his fingers still burn. 

Even the worst toilet day doesn't seem bad when I can eat fresh Caprese with Basil microgreens for every meal. And I do.