For the last several years, the shower in our master bathroom has suffered from a progressively increasing drip when turned off. I was confident that this could be rectified by replacing the four washers and seals used in the main valve body (pictured above). The challenge was getting it out. First, there is no water shutoff for the shower which means that it would require turning off water to the entire house. Although this is easy to do, the risk of breaking a pipe during this operation is very real and would result in no water for the house until it was repaired. Second the handle had 31 years of corrosion on its internal spline making it next to impossible to remove. Ultimately, I needed a torch and fairly large pry bars to remove the handle. Once liberated, I had to fight different battles with each of the four threaded joints inside the valve. The entire repair took the better part of the morning but was well worth the effort.

Later in the day, Jeanine and I joined Kyle for lunch and a long walk around Fresh Pond where we encounter this bumper crop of mushrooms.