OK, SWMBO says I can稚 leave all my TBN friends out there hanging like that, because some of you are probably OCD and will be up all night trying to figure this out. So forget about 展hat the Heck is Making These Holes? and get on with it.
Here is how we left things. SWMBO went down to the basement and ran a garden hose into a stand pipe that was close to the main exit of our sewage system from the cottage. She then turned on the water, and let it run, watching the standpipe to see if it overflowed or not. She had one hand on the garden hose valve so that she could turn it off instantly if the standpipe started to overflow, which would of course indicate that the pump tank was not working. Meanwhile I was outside with my ear to the ground, listening to hear if the pump came on.
Lo and behold, after a while the pump came on and stayed on for maybe 10 or 15 seconds which is about what you would expect, and then shut off! There was nothing wrong with that system at all! The alarm was going off for no good reason.
So, we covered the pump tank area with the snow again (for insulation) and headed back down south to go home. I will leave it like that for now, and just unplug the alarm, until it gets warm enough to dig the alarm wires up, or maybe I can just work on the alarm itself from the inside. Either way, the important point is we do have a sewage system which seems to function, which is a big deal. You can imagine what it would be like going up to the country place in the middle of the winter and being unable to run any water or to use the toilets.
OK, that痴 enough for now. It is bedtime anyway.