Once again during this coronavirus pandemic and its accompanying stay-at-home orders, I wrapped up my morning coffee on April 9th and turned to the random selection of a to-do chore from my quarantine task jar. The slip that was drawn directed me to work on my plan for landscape irrigation, something I'd started researching and plotting last summer but which fell far short of any real progress.
But this will be an extended process from start to finish, so I honored my commitment of at least an hour on the day's task, although it proved to be much longer than that, as I read through tutorials and looked at websites and even peeked at some of the potential equipment and supplies I'll need. Drawing that task from my jar also pushed me to take some very necessary first steps: (1) submitting a Before You Dig request to nc811.org, and (2) scheduling the plumber to come look at my options for getting a secondary water meter installed that would be dedicated just to landscaping. (I'd gotten the connection authorization form for this from the City last summer.)
The consult with the plumber took place the following Tuesday, which is when I learned that the city has changed its procedures for new meters, probably just after I visited and obtained my form there last summer. The requirement now is for a licensed utility contractor to do the meter install...and that shifted some of my labors into looking up contractors to call. I'll work to line up appointments and bids at the start of next week. In the meantime, over these seven or eight days, I've been schooling myself mostly via Youtube videos but also through some websites on irrigation systems, sprinkler heads, lay-out, valves, controllers, and so on.
The irrigation project itself is huge, no doubt, and updates will probably be scattered in various blog posts. But the road to completion could not commence without developing a plan, and I pretty much had that in place by the end of Easter weekend. That's yet another indication of how valuable this quarantine task jar idea is turning out to be for pushing me to get stuff done.
No comments:
Post a Comment