OK, so I lied ;-)

It's been a little longer than I planned, but here's another installment from Ocala.

At the very end of February, I realized that I had run into a brand new situation for us. Not only do we have a lawn again, but we also have a sprinkler system to maintain.

This is the very first sprinkler system I've ever had, and all the manual tells you is how to set it up for timed cycles, without explaining anything about how it's put together.

Add to that the fact that the print is so small you need a magnifying glass to read it, and this becomes a slight frustration. (maybe I need to get my eyes checked again)

Well, after bugging our next door neighbor, and pushing some buttons on the control panel, we got some water to come out of ONE of our three zones. After calling a sprinkler company for a spring check, I went back inside to relax.

A couple of days later the sprinkler company came and in about twenty minutes had diagnosed the problem. Only 3 hours and $350 later and it was fixed, sorta.

The next time the system was scheduled to come on (a couple of days) I went outside to make sure it all worked right. The first zone was fine, the 2nd zone didn't come on at all, and the 3rd zone started, but it was running the sprinklers in zone one. Confused????? grrrrrrrrrrrr

I called the owner and he had his guys back the same day. Apparently there were two wires switched around and the sprinkler zones were confused. We now have a properly operating sprinkler system, and it's really needed, cuz a lot of the grass is hurting from the long winter and very dry conditions.

We have restricted watering in this part of Florida, as it's in a drought area, and has been for awhile.

Our yard got dug up by Saddle oak, to install some shut-off valves in the piping system. Apparently there were only two valves in the whole community where they could shut off water for repairs.

Well, they closed it back up, but the sand they dug up didn't get cleaned up really well, and we both think it's stopping some of the grass from coming back. Everybody says it will, but........

We'll see.

We decided to go to the Spring Escapees Chapter 27 Rally in a nearby town, and next post we'll show you some of that.

ttfn

Paul