Ah, the best laid plans of wives and moms.

Spent the first part of the morning tackling and finishing a job I had begun Sunday evening. Getting my clematis by the Cook’s porch going the right way.

What a job.

I had not paid attention to the clematis until recently, I should have been training it the right way all along, as it grew, that would have been the logical thing to do. But being an economy model gardener I thought it would just follow the grid up and across the window. Instead it decided it would rather wrap around the corner of the house and head off in the wrong direction leaving the grid naked and this clump of bloom waving into the air.

Man those clematis really wrap around themselves in crazy little corkscew knots.

I finally got as far as I needed to regain the look I was going for, some had to be left wrapping around the corner because the vines first went behind the drain pipe. Done with that job, I sat down to lunch and was plotting out my next gardening job when in rushed Bet hollering in panic mode.

She was hollering about the dishwasher dumpin out water everywhere. I panicked until I realized that I was sitting in the room next to the dishawasher and I hadn’t heard it going let alone noticed water rushing in from the kitchen. Then I realized that she misspoke and was referring to the washing machine, she had corrected herself immediately but my mind had already begun processing off of the dishwasher information and the concept of yet another floor ruined by my nemesis the dishwasher.

But instead there was two inches of water on the floor of our laundry house.

We have our laundry out in a separate building that was originally built for my office/sewing room as our farm house is very small. Four years ago when our second daughter was getting married here at the farm and our kitchen could not be overlooked any longer (the sub floor was finally falling apart beyond patching due to the exploding dishwasher years earlier), I came up with a great idea. Between the kitchen and the back door was a enclosed porch of sorts that housed the washer and dryer. The “room” was so small however that the dryer door could not be fully opened and a basket of laundry could barely fit on the floor, lets just call it a tight squeeze. So we decided to plumb my “shop” for laundry machines, send the washer and dryer out there and turn the porch into a place to house my cookbooks, wine and fine spirits, etc. And since I was now down two daughters my sewing had moved into one of the upstairs bedrooms and the rest of the shop turned laundry house became my propagation room. Then in moved an upright freezer and spare refrigerator, winter clothes and chest waders, saddles that needed to be stored in here, wine making supplies which consist of ten five-gallon glass carboys, six eight-gallon buckets and zillions of empty wine bottles, not to mention lots of cardboard boxes no one can throw out and up in the loft is all my accumulated banquet supplies.

As I walked out to the laundry house yesterday to the panic of my third daughter I knew any plans that I had wanted to mark off my “to do list” regarding the garden would not be getting marked off today! Yep just as I thought all sorts of things were floating in two inches of perlite-and-peat-moss-filled water. The girls began to quickly unload the contents of the laundry house onto the driveway while I looked at the washing machine in disbelief wondering why I still heard running water.

Well never mind why, just get the running water shut off. So I reached behind the machine and shut off the water going to the machine. But I could still hear water trickling, what the heck, where was the water coming from? Pushing the machine and the basket rack out of the way I examined the hoses. They all appeared to be intact and dry. So where was the stinking water coming from? Well fine I will just shut off the main water line, but where the heck was it? Call Dirt at work and leave a message, and as soon as you hang up you find it, (Murphy’s Law).

With all the water shut off and no more trickling water sound, I can turn my attention to the mess, ugh. Keep hauling it out girls. Dirt calls to tell me where the shut off valve is (thanks got it) and to see what the problem is (uh, how about two inches of water). Keep hauling things out girls and start bailing out the water. Dad arrives home. I leave the scene to protect the innocent – me. But nothing like forewarning and a lovely motorsickle ride between work and the mess to calm a fellow down. Washing machine gets hauled out to the laundry house porch and diagnosis begins, it ends with death pronounced.

Terrific, if loosing today wasn’t bad enough, I am elected to be the new washing machine purchaser tomorrow. I do not want to go to town! I did not want to go to town for this whole stinking month! But then again I don’t want to hand wash all our clothes either so fine, I’ll go.