Recovery Part I

Having broken my 6-inch vitrified clay ( = terra cotta?) sewer line, I set about excavating around it to make way for repairs. First I tie a couple old shirts to a piece of string and stuff them in the pipe on the downhill side to prevent dirt from going down there, and I tie the other end of the string to my railing to make sure the shirts don't go down there too:

As I dig I pretend to myself that I'm working to prevent a major environmental catastrophe. When I hit shale, I think it must be Marcellus shale. As I clean away around the pipe, I'm a BP robot:

Once the dirt and shirts are all removed, I'm tired. I want my life back. I see that the bottom of the pipe is enough intact to function as a drainage trough, so I just cover it up for now with plywood and go back inside to eat and run water all I please: