Bird, Cattle, Water leak

A strange day.  I woke up to sounds coming from either my woodstove or the pipe that goes from the woodstove to the chimney.  I thought I heard a similar sound yesterday but found nothing.   Today I found a small bird in my woodstove.   This has happened several times over the past few decades.  A bird somehow falls down the chimney, then walks through the pipe and gets into my woodstove.  This time I was careful the bird didn't fly out of the woodstove into the house.  I used an old shirt to grab the bird inside the woodstove. It took a few attempts to do so.  I was able to take the bird outside.  I set the bird down and it initially laid there.  I got concerned the bird was injured, but after a minute it flew away.  I don't know what type of bird it was.

Then I saw in the corral that Haynes had pushed out part of another fence board.  This time he went to the next fence section to push on the board as all the small posts I added to the previous fence section held those boards in place.  I re-nailed this board back to the fence and added another small post to help hold the board in the place in the future.

Later I put out another large hay bale in the feeder for the cows.  First I had to clean the feeder because some cow took a crap and it was on the side of the feeder inside and out, and on the ground inside the feeder.   Seriously girls, behave.

This morning I went down in the house's crawl space to open the side vents, and to open an inside faucet so I could use the outside faucet this Summer.   While down there I noticed one of my plumbing pipes had a leak.  This pipe goes to the bathroom.  In the first photo you can see the water spraying out of the pipe.   Why this is happening, who knows.   I had remodeled the bathroom exactly 12 years ago in May of 2012.  I had also redone most of the pipe going to the bathroom.  You can see that my old solder work wasn't pretty.

Fixing the pipe today was a challenge.  First I had to cut the pipe where the leak was located.  For whatever reason the pipe cutter wanted to move sideways while cutting the pipe.  I had to restart and restart and restart to make sure the pipe cutter cut the pipe where the leak was located.

I went to Home Depot to buy a coupling connection.  Still some water was dripping from the open pipe.  The faucet to this section of pipe had been turned off.  I then turned off the faucet that allows water to the entire house.  I also opened the bathroom faucets to make it easier for those pipes to drain.  After a bit, still a drip.  I then turned off the faucet out in my well.  I waited.  Still a slow drip.  This section of the pipe is among the lowest section, but, still, where is this water coming from?

Since the leak would not stop to let the pipe dry, soldering the connection would not work. I tried, but for whatever reason, the solder wouldn't melt onto the pipe.

All this work had taken time so I decided to do what I now remembered I had done back in 2012 for the last solder connection.  That last connection wouldn't solder as the pipe wouldn't stay dry.  I was able to buy a push fitting to make the connection and that has lasted.  

https://www.pexuniverse.com/leaks-sharkbite-and-other-brands-push-fittings-and-how-prevent-them#:~:text=Push%20Fittings%20(push%20to%20connect,PROBite%2C%20GatorBite%20and%20possibly%20others.

They are more expensive.   The connection I bought to solder cost me 61 cents.  The push connection cost me $8.27.  But it is worth it if soldering won't work.  So back to Home Depot I went before they closed for the day.

The push connection should be easy, but for me it wasn't.   One needs to get both sides of the pipe into the connection.  But as you can see the pipe to be repaired is short because of the offshoots.  More offshoots that are seen in the photo.  So it was hard to flex and move the last piece of pipe to get it into the connection.  And in doing so the connection slid a little further on the previous pipe.   Now these connections can be removed when using a disconnect tool.   But the connection had slid all the way up to the end of the T connection.  The tool wouldn't work.

When I turned the water on the other side of the connection would leak. *argh!*  I was able to remove the pipe from the side of the connection leak.  I had to work again over and over to try to get this side into the connection and for it to sit properly.  I wanted to at least to get the connection on, and if there was a slow leak at least I could use the bathroom and tomorrow get this connection off both sides.   But somehow I got the connection to work properly.  No leaks.   I put a bucket under the pipe.  Tomorrow I will see if any water is in the bucket to see if this connection is good.   Hopefully it will be.

Also irritating was that I was working in the house's crawlspace.   This area is a hallower area.  So shallow that I could not sit upright when working.  It is hard to do this when leaning sideways.   Finally I got a small shovel and moved some dirt.  I didn't move enough dirt as I wanted as there were two house supports that went to the ground.  One you can see in the back of the photo.   After moving some dirt I still couldn't sit up straight, but at least I wasn't leaning as much as before.