Is the Master Valve Turned On?

“You don’t know what you don’t know.”

– Socrates

Oh, the things that come to try us…

Or teach us, perhaps?

Out-of-control forest fires are burning dangerously close to where I live on Vancouver Island at the moment. Hundreds of people are being evacuated. It is awful.

It is also our new reality.

As such, it might seem strange (and ironic) for me to be writing about something as seemingly trivial as my frustration with my underground irrigation system. As forests – and homes – burn to the ground, why am I concerned about the difficulty of keeping my damn garden watered?

Because I have a garden…and if I don’t keep it watered, it will die. Our summers are pretty much drought conditions. We get very little rain. So if we have gardens, we have to water them to keep them alive. Or let them die…like our lawns.

I am choosing to keep my garden alive – if for no other reason than because we are going to have to keep alive as much vegetation as we can on the planet, to act as tiny carbon sinks.

Since rain water is not an option, last year I finally had an underground drip irrigation system installed. Because it’s underground, there is no evaporation waste of water.

But because it’s underground, it is also very difficult to tell whether there is, in fact, any actual watering going on – because the surface of the garden beds are dry as a bone.

Although my larger trees looked happy and healthy, many of the smaller plants didn’t look so good. And so, just to be on the safe side, I fell into my old pre-irrigation pattern of manually watering some of the plants with a garden hose…you know, just to supplement the underwater irrigation system.

So much for not wasting water.

As it would turn out, it’s a good thing I did do some manual watering by hand. Because boy oh boy, was I ever mad at myself the other day…for not knowing something that, in hindsight, was pretty darn obvious.

Or was it?

Now, if you happen to have an underground irrigation system in your yard – or are familiar with irrigation systems – then you’ll know just how silly (and angry) I feel about what I discovered. However, if (like me), you don’t have any knowledge of underground irrigation systems whatsoever, then you might not think I’m a total idiot.

I honestly thought (believed might be a better word) my brand spankin’ new underground irrigation system had been dutifully dripping water – every second morning for half an hour – to the roots of my plants for the past two months. And yet, because of what I could see in my rather dry garden with my own eyes, I had my doubts.

But I kept checking the irrigation control panel on the side of my house to make sure the system was working properly. As mentioned, it was programmed to run for half an hour every second morning. So, during the time it was supposed to be running, I would look at the panel and yup, the little sprinkler icon was flashing away.

But as the rainless summer progressed, the garden beds themselves sure looked dry to me. And the plants didn’t seem to be doing very well either. They were surviving but not particularly thriving.

Why I didn’t actually dig down into the garden and see if there was, in fact, any water dripping out of the irrigation tubes, I don’t know!

I guess I was too busy hand-watering my plants. Too busy putting a band-aid on the problem instead of taking time to find out why the problem existed in the first place.

But then, a week ago, my cousin, Matt, and his family came to visit. He’s a handy irrigation kinda guy, so I talked to him about my concerns. He looked at the irrigation panel on the side of the house and nodded, “Yup, it’s working.”

“Then why is my garden so dry?!” I asked. “I swear something is wonky.”

Matt thought a minute. “The master valve is turned on, isn’t it?”

I frowned. “The what?”

“The master valve.”

“What’s that?” I asked, as a tiny little lightbulb slowly started flashing in my brain.

“It’s the valve that needs to be open for the water to get into your irrigation system.”

I blinked at this brilliant tidbit of intel. “And where would that master valve be?” I asked.

He looked at me like I had horns coming out of my head. “Wherever it is that the irrigation system is hooked up to the water source. There should be a panel on the ground in your yard somewhere.”

I racked my brain a moment, then proudly led him to a panel in the far corner of my front lot. I pointed down at the panel. “I think that might be what you’re talking about.”

He nodded, dropped to his knees and popped up the panel. “Yup,” he says. “There’s your master valve…and it’s in the ‘off’ position.”

“WHAT?!”

I watched him calmly turn the valve to the ‘on’ position, then put the panel lid back on. Then he stood up and looked at me, smiling. He didn’t want to say the obvious, so I did.

“So, you’re telling me my irrigation system has been turned OFF this entire summer?”

“Correct. Whoever did the blowout of the lines last fall would have turned the master valve off for the winter.”

I sighed, trying not to cry. “Then why did the little sprinkler icon indicate that the system was, in fact, watering my garden ever second morning?”

Matt shrugged. “Because as far as the program was concerned, it WAS watering. The irrigation system itself seems to be working fine. But it can’t tell whether there’s actually any water in the tubes or not. It just opens and closes the small valves to the individual tubes.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “And why, pray tell, would the guys who installed my irrigation system not TELL me that I needed to turn on the master valve in the spring?”

Matt shrugged again. “Probably because they would just turn it on themselves when they came back to do the blowout in the spring.”

I blinked again. “They were supposed to do a blowout in the spring?”

Matt’s eyes widened. “Well someone should have, yes! That’s really important – to make sure the lines are clear of debris. And the filter should be cleaned then, too.”

I threw my hands in the air. “I feel like a total idiot! I had no idea there even was a master valve.”

“Don’t feel bad,” said Matt, shaking his head. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

Very true. And quite frankly, the irrigation guy should have mentioned this very obvious-to-him-but-how-the-heck-would-I-know fact about home irrigation systems.

And furthermore, now that I have (finally) taken the time to dig down deep into my garden beds and thoroughly check – with my own eyes – that water is, in fact, dripping out of the tubes, I discovered that only 3 out of 4 sections of my garden is being watered. It would seem that the tubing for one entire section is, in fact, plugged with debris.

And just to top it all off, when I went to take the photo of The Master Valve for this blog (and thank goodness I did), as you’ll see in the picture above, I noticed that the entire system is now submerged in water…and still spraying water! The damn thing has been LEAKING all week! And I betcha dollars to donuts, it’s because the filter is plugged.

So much for not wasting water.

On the bright side, now I know how to turn off the master valve. So I have done just that. And although I am now right back where I started – no water going to my plants – at least this time, I am aware of it 🙂

I called my irrigation guy…he’s coming by to get it all sorted out and back on track.

So that’s my story about The Master Valve. I suspect there are multiple metaphorical lessons lurking in here…but I shall save those for another day. A rainy one, perhaps.

In the meantime, how about you?

#1. Might there be an important missing piece of information that you don’t know you don’t know – about something that isn’t working in your life?

#2. Could there be a master valve somewhere that needs to be turned on…in order to get things flowing again?

Metaphorically-speaking, what might you need to get flowing in your life again? Faith? Love? Abundance? Share on X

#3. Are you too busy doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result – instead of taking a moment and asking yourself why something clearly isn’t working?

For me, one lesson I am taking away from this irrigation gong show is this: the next time I suspect something isn’t working the way it is supposed to, I am going to take a moment and THINK…instead of frantically doing the same thing over and over again, all the while ignoring the little voice of wisdom that whispers things like, “Dig down a bit, Maryanne, don’t be a boob…see if there’s actually water in that there irrigation tube.”

Maryanne Pope is the author of “A Widow’s Awakening.” She also writes screenplays, playscripts & blogs. Maryanne is the CEO of Pink Gazelle Productions and Co-Founder of the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund. To receive her blog, “Weekly Words of Wisdom,” please subscribe here. And be sure to visit our PinkGazelleCards Etsy shop.