A few years ago we bought a game of Labyrinth Jr. for the grandkids -- just one piece in our ongoing campaign to make ours the funnest home ever. The game is built around a board that slides to and fro, so that the path your pieces must take is constantly changing.

At some point over the next three years, every street in town will be torn up, pipe will be laid, and the pipe will be buried again. The process goes fairly quickly. Every night new streets are dug up, new detour signs are set up, and the path from here to there changes, again.

And we are all rats in a constantly changing maze, just trying to get to the cheese, which never moves.

I understand the concept of extending the life of our municipal water supply by using untreated water on our lawns and gardens. And I know it's probably the only way these communities are going to be able to continue to grow.

I just wish the process had started several years ago, before we had so many streets to dig up and so many connections to make.

And the real "fun" is just starting.

The city will bring this water to your yard at some point over the next three years, including digging a line from the new pipe onto your property. Once that line is available, culinary water rates will go up way up. So far up, that it will encourage almost everyone to activate their pressurized irrigation connection.

A connection guide provided by the city lays out a six-step connection process that might have come from IKEA. Especially if you are home-improvement challenged, like me. (To be fair, they also list several plumbers who can do the work for you.)

One thing the city wants is to make sure no one cross connects the culinary and secondary water systems. First, you must turn off the valve -- easy enough, I do this every winter. Then you have to cut and cap the old line from the valve to the rest of the sprinkler system. This is not so easy, as it involves a lot of digging.

(I know because my valve wore out two years and we had to dig it up and replace it. In the process we nicked the main line, causing it to geyser like Old Faithful. Once repairs were made we had to have a plumber go through the house cleaning grit out of water lines, replacing gaskets, and repairing the toilets. We also had to repair our water softener valve, so a simple do-it-yourself lawn sprinkler repair turned into a fairly expensive enterprise.)

Capping the old line is not enough. You must then fill the pipe that accesses the stop-and-waste valve with concrete -- so you are never, ever tempted to use it again.

Finally, you can connect your existing sprinkler system to the new water line, and include a new filter, if you are smart, because the PI water is not as clean as culinary water, and debris in the pipes could damage your valves and sprinklers. (See above.)

All of the trenches that make this connection must be left open until a city employee inspects the new line. Every home will have an independent inspection, and that will mean a lot of work for the Pressurized Irrigation police. It boggles the mind.

It all looks very complicated to me, but then, I'm a simple man. Fortunately my home is in the last part of town to be connected, so I won't have to worry about all this until 2010.

Still, I don't think most people understand that the inconvenience we are experiencing as we try to find today's route home is just the first step in a long and inconvenient project, albeit a necessary one.

In the end, we'll have a fine system that will ensure enough drinking water for everyone and enough to keep our yards green, as well.

Getting there, however, will prove to be a bumpy ride indeed.