A few months ago (possibly around November) Richard and I were awakened far too early one morning by the sound of water pouring on our roof. At first we thought it was a heavy rain storm, but looking out the window quickly showed that it was either an extremely small, localized storm (a storm which rained from the ground up, no less), or one of the sprinkler heads in the front yard had gone kaput. We weren't going to get up at that time of night to do a sprinkler inspection, but later in the day Richard went out to look.

Our answer to the problem, at that time, was to turn off all the sprinklers, since it was nearing the rainy season and the sprinklers really weren't required at that time anyway. We figured we'd deal with it later - when spring hit and the rainy season was over and we once again needed to water the yard.

Well guess what? Apparently spring has sprung. This morning, at about 3:30, I was abruptly jerked out of sleep by the sound of water pouring onto the porch roof right outside our windows. Gah. Since neither Richard nor I flipped the switch, nor do I think burglars make a habit of sneaking into people's back yards and turning on their irrigation systems, I can only assume that the gardeners made the decision for us.

That early in the morning I couldn't do much about it except mutter nasty things under my breath, get annoyed at Richard because the sprinklers did *not* wake him up (although to my credit I did decide against poking him awake so he would have to experience the geyser too), and give up and crawl back into bed and hope that I would eventually get back to sleep (in case you were wondering, I did not). Because it is still March, and history tells me that despite the uncharacteristically sunny days we've been having lately, the rain and the gloom will return, the sprinklers were turned back off this evening. But the fact that the gardeners did it once means that they are just as likely to do it again. So it appears that this weekend we'll be doing a little irrigation system repair - and hopefully it will be as easy as everyone tells me it should be.