Mystery Solved

Coyotes.  The fence that we had fixed nearly three years ago, and actually was left to lean out slightly in the manner of the top of prison fence, was probably now leaning a bit too much.  David was outside washing his landrover.  He heard the chickens cackle and looked over, and there about 100 ft away, and 60 ft from the house, was a wacking big coyote, stood under the maple tree in the middle of the sheep/chicken field.  He chased it off, and saw it go over the fence.  Unfortunately in this situation, we are not a gun owning family, and have nothing more powerful than a pellet gun.  David got it and went over the fence to see if he could get a shot.   Larry rounded up some fence posts, as the old ones had rotted off, and David and I pounded some in, and the fence is straightened back up where it should be.  I still can't understand why there were no feathers on the other side of the fence.

On a good note, we got the Christmas trifle made before all that happened.  I'm now sipping coffee with Bailey's.  I need it.  Our hot water is turned off.  Just before we went out to fix the fence, I heard a noise in the sewing room.  Three fine streams of water were spraying from the hot water copper pipe coming out of the top of the water heater.  They were hitting the wall and running down.  We are going to try and patch it with rubber pieces and hose clamps for now.  People are grumbling about needing showers.  Wish us luck!

Update:  For a while we had a water feature in the basement.  Water dripping down the copper pipe, into a bent pie plate, waterfalling over the edge, where it was guided by a cookie sheet into a five gallon bucket.


I was wrong, it was the cold water inlet pipe.  To stop the leaking we would have had to turn all the water off to the house.  It is now patched with hose clamps and pieces of bicycle inner tube, which will hopefully get us through to Wednesday.  Repair supplies for that soldering project were purchased this afternoon.

Have a very Merry Christmas.!