Rachel Wise: Good help hard to find these days

Rachel Wise is a lifestyle-block owner and community newspaper editor. Jacoby Poulain is taking a break and will return next week.

A little help in the garden can go a long way, I've recently discovered.

A gardening friend has taken me on as a project. She gardens exquisitely. I don't, and I suspect my overgrown section makes her eyes hurt.

The plan of attack on Queen's Birthday Weekend involved a 50-year-old grapevine, a plum tree and a lot of cutting implements. I recruited a daughter or two and gave them the instructions "We'll chop - you burn".

After about an hour of brandishing loppers, saws and wire-cutters there was quite a pile growing on the driveway and lawn. The cleanup crew had taken one look, succumbed to an attack of inertia and gone for a lie-down. Another hour and we'd found and destroyed a second, smaller plum tree, a shrubby thing and some agapanthus and there was little left except a few grapevine stumps (which my gardening friend assures me will live) and the trunk of the original, biggish plum tree.

That was when hubby decided he'd help.

"I'll pull that stump out," he declared, in that way blokes do when they see something that invites the use of machinery, brute force and petrol fumes. Or in this case, diesel fumes. He cranked up the trusty Toyota, wrapped a strop around the tree and drove forth. A second later I yelled at him to cease driving forth but apparently he didn't hear me over the roar of the engine because the driving forth continued and the stump came out, along with the water supply to the house.

After a brief pause for a minor domestic disagreement I went for a walk to the pumpshed to turn off the water. When I got back, hubby handed me several broken bits of pipe and fittings and said "you'll need a couple of new ones of these - Mitre 10's still open. I, um, have to go now or I'll miss my race".

And he was off. To a cycle race.

Gardening friend left soon after, still assuring me the grapevine stumps were nothing to be concerned about and, really, it was all for the best.

The cleanup crew had slumped so far into inertia one was asleep.

As it happened, Mitre 10 was open and happily sold me plumbing supplies which I took home and decanted into the driveway alongside the pile of tree branches and grapevine, tangle of chicken wire, tree stump (still attached to strop), scattering of dirt and tools and the almighty great hole where the tree stump used to be.

I sawed off the broken ends of water pipe and the skin from one of my knuckles. I attached joiners and new pipe and tightened them up. I went back to the pumpshed and turned the water supply back on, then I went to check my handiwork. It was leaking. I went back to the pumpshed and turned the water off, drove back to Mitre 10 and bought thread tape.

Then I undid my handiwork, applied thread tape, did it all up again, looked at the pumpshed - 150 metres and a creek away - and decided to have a cup of tea - which you can't do if you've turned the water off, it appears.

That's when I got all efficient.

If I had to drag the tree stump down to the burning pile in the paddock, I might as well get it over with and while I was driving, I could drive to the pumpshed, thus saving my legs. Sorted.

Sorted indeed. I deposited the stump at the burning pile, put the truck into four-wheel-drive and drove it into the creek and not quite out the other side. Sort of halfway, really. Just enough to make it obvious to the neighbours that I had the truck stuck. In the creek.

I tried forward and reverse and swearing. I tried all those futile "putting rocks under the wheels" things you do when you get stuck.

Then I walked to the pumpshed and turned the water back on. And I walked to the house and looked at my handiwork. It was still leaking. I went inside and made a cup of tea.

Eventually hubby came home. I told him the truck was in the creek and that it was all his fault.

He asked me if I had it in four-wheel drive. He must have guessed, from the stare I gave him, that I did.

He asked me if I'd pushed the button on the dashboard. He must have guessed, from me saying "what button on the dashboard?" that I hadn't.

So hubby went out, got in the truck, pushed the button on the dashboard (something to do with diff lock, whatever that is) and drove the truck out of the creek. Apparently he won his race.

I'm not sure, I'm not speaking to him.

The water pipe is still leaking.