This Simple Life is kickin' my butt!

I love my 80 year old house, but I don't love the 80 year old plumbing. Living in this house has given me a great appreciation for the Hansen way of doing things. When a Hansen builds something they build it to last till to the millenium. As Pumpa was famous for saying "Hell for Stout" which incidently is the way Derron describes me. See what I mean, it's the Hansen way of building things & Derron has built himself a stout wife. I've explained to him that a woman doesn't really like to be described as "stout" but to a Hansen that should be a compliment, I'm learning. Now back to the old plumbing. There is a water line running from the old Hansen well down to our house. The house is no longer connected to it but we do keep a couple of outdoor fawcetts going to water the yard here & there. There really isn't much pressure but it's handy to have. In the last year it has broken in various places & Derron is worried that one day we'll wake up & part of our house will be sunken into the ground from a leaking underground pipe. Now I'm sure that when Pumpa put the old line in he was sure that old pipe would last till the second coming, but it only lasted till the second coming of another Hansen to come along & replace & re-route the entire thing & Grandpa Gene was there to make sure it was done right.

Now Grandpa isn't usually packin' heat but we needed a little motivation for this job. We were having to cut through the roots of 80 year old trees & hard packed clay. It was no easy task. We were tired, sweaty & thirsty. Many a traveler came by.

But most just looked on us with pity & fear of hard labor & hurried past. But there was a certain Special Ed teacher that passed by & had mercy on us & took up a shovel & began to labor with us.He had but little strength & skill, but was willing to give of his substance to help our cause. We were so grateful to him for his sacrifice, but we soon had to realize that it would take the mercy of one greater than us all to rescue us from the great burden which had been laid upon us.
J.D. Smith, the man with all the power came to our final rescue & redeemed us from an everlasting wo!

When Grandpa saw that the work was done he turned & walked away. Well, he was really off to shoot some crows out of his corn fields, but it made a good end to the story.