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Last summer, when temperatures around the world exceeded human limits and wildfires destroyed Canada's forests, the kitchen sink was clogged. Our disaster was minor, but the house no longer functioned. We couldn't wash the dishes, shower or do the laundry. Repeated visits to the plumber didn't help. I had long feared this would happen. No one had dug up the grey water pit for 20 years.
The greywater pit was part of the vocabulary of my rural upbringing. My parents had built this house. With no water or sewerage lines, we were on our own, relying on peculiar plumbing systems. In ancient times, a medieval-looking object called a grease trap was installed in the basement. From time to time, a smell would signal that it needed cleaning. My brothers and I did it, using sticks and spirals (drills), scooping out the inky sludge with old margarine containers and sponges.
Every ten years or so, the blockage would extend beyond the grease trap and require drastic measures. The greywater pit, about eight metres from the house, had to be dug up and the drain cleared from there. The last time this was done, my parents were too old for digging. I naively volunteered and got help over the weekend from my nephew, who had a bad hangover. We managed it, but he made me promise never to ask for it again.
As my parents had been gone for a long time, this time I wanted to hire someone for the job. Strangely, no one wanted to, or if they did, they couldn't start for weeks. My brothers asked but showed no enthusiasm to roll up their sleeves. Thankfully my partner offered to help. Born and raised in inner-city Glasgow, he was unfamiliar with the concept of a grey water pit, but he has a strong stomach.
On a humid July day, we began transplanting the peonies that were thriving in the right spot. Then we started clearing away soil – mostly rocks, some of them huge chunks of limestone. “Who put these here?” groaned my partner. I was silent.
It took days to get it out. The whole time I was worried: were we digging in the right place? I remembered that the pit was about two meters deep. We knew we had found it when we came across the old VW bus door that served as a cover.
We worked slowly to avoid back and shoulder pain, heat strokes and heart attacks. I dug early in the morning before it got hot, filling and dumping bucket after bucket of bone-dry earth. It hadn't rained for weeks. It wasn't pleasant, but it was calming, even meditative. The planet's systems were breaking down, but there was a chance that with sweat, perseverance and ancient knowledge we could repair this small, home-grown system.
The air, though tinged with smoke from distant forest fires, was saturated with oxygen from ice-gray oaks and maples. The ash trees were gone, but the canopy was still thick. I could easily transport myself back five decades to when my mother tied tomatoes to a sunny spot. The birds were singing their morning songs, though much more quietly than when I was a child. Lots of loud jays and robins, but no flycatchers or warblers. My father could identify dozens of species by song alone. I hadn't heard a kingfisher all summer.
After a few days of work, we came across broken porcelain from an old toilet. Then a dented garden chair and an axle. Soon after, to our delight, our shovels clanged on steel: the door of the van! It took us the rest of the day to clear away enough earth to prevent an avalanche into the open pit.
The next morning we pried open the van door. The concrete cellar below didn't smell. It was dry. Or at least not completely – when I let myself in, I sank up to my calves in the black goo that was familiar from the old grease trap. At this point it was less liquid and more gelatinous. If left long enough, it would undoubtedly turn to coal; even longer, to diamonds.
Back down in the pit, balancing on some planks, I braced myself for the purpose of the exercise: to untie the drainpipe. All my doubts returned. The plumber was sure that the pipe was broken. If so, it would have to be dug up to the house and professionally replaced, which would cause further lengthy household problems and considerable expense.
But as we carefully hammered an old ski pole into the pipe, a drop of moisture formed on the rusted edge. A minute later, it was dripping. Several kettles of boiling water poured into the kitchen sink finally caused a sluggish black sludge to flow out. Countless kettles later, clear water flowed.
When the cheering had died down, we shoveled out the mud and sealed the pit again with boards and solid insulation. The VW door was put back on top on the advice of a brother: “It looks more or less the same as it did when it was removed from the van.”
It didn't take long to shovel the earth back into the hole. My partner built low walls and a paved path out of the stones we dug up. Shrubs from garden center sales now sway in the wind on the trampled ground. And beneath our feet the grey water pit is slowly filling up. Whether we like it or not, we won't be digging it up again.
Maureen Garvie lives in Kingston, Ontario.
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