Sprinklers...Day 8

Holy crap I am tired. I have been working on sprinklers all day long with only a little to show for it. I finally got the second sprinkler manifold all connected and attached to the mainline. However, when I went to check to make sure everything was tight and I didn't have any leaks, my fairly successful day went down the tubes. One of the automatic valves did not turn off. Almost instantly, this turned the hole, where the manifold was located, into a major mud-infested swimming-pit. The majority of all the surrounding dirt walls crumbled into the water making the hole even bigger and muddier then I could have ever wanted. By time I turned off the water, which is all the way on the other side of the property, I had successfully filled all the trenches in the area with about 4 inches of water. This didn't include the foot of water in the hole where the manifold was.
In trying to unbury the valves, more dirt fell into the hole, making the water the consistency of cold oatmeal. And if any of you have tried digging in oatmeal, you know it isn't very easy. Because mudslide buried the valves, I was unable to hook up any of the sprinkler zones directly to the manifold.
After a good hour or so, I was able to get the manifold out of the mud and propped it up above the ground so the mud could have a chance to dry.
Since I couldn't attach any additional zones to the manifold, I decided to try and run the pipe backwards. So instead of running from the manifold out, I ran the pipe from the final destination back to the manifold. This doesn't sound so difficult, but right before I got to this point, my help had to go take care of the screaming baby. We had the baby out with us while we were working on the pipes, but she soon got bored and needed more attention. This changed the relatively simple task of rolling out the pipe into a major job. Usually you have one person roll the pipe, while the other person makes sure the pipe is going into the hole. All the time trying no to knock the dirt that is on the side of the trenches back into the trench. However, trying to hold the awkward role of 400ft of black poly pipe that has to weigh close to 50lbs makes for a big challenge.
Anyway, after all the fun I had today, I only completed 2 of the 5 zones. I guess this is a little bit of progress, but I still have 3 zones to go. Once that is completed, I still need to run the sprinkler control wire and finish burying the pipe in the ground. I was hoping to be done with all the zones today, that obviously didn't happen. So I will be slowly working at it again every night when I get home from work. FUN FUN FUN...