Oh won't you please, please help me....

Sorry, I've got Beatles songs stuck in my head today. But really, I do need your help. Especially if you have special knowledge about building in Alaska. 

And here, for your viewing pleasure. I would like to present to you no less than 5 pipes sticking out of our backyard.

 

 

 

 And there is one more in our front yard for our well. The five in the backyard are for the septic and whatnot. Now will someone please help me understand why they are all there. I was told that they were sticking out of the ground that far in case someone needed to access them in the winter. Now my question is why, for the love of Pete, do they need five different pipes to access my septic? And two of them are approximately four feet apart. Shouldn't one be sufficient? 

Having grown up in Michigan I just don't understand this. We had snow in Michigan. The ground froze just the same as in Alaska. If we ever needed to have the septic pumped in the middle of winter I guess that we just had to remember where it was and dig, because our pipe did not stick three feet above the ground. It stuck about an inch or two above the ground. And there was only one of them. I guess it was just good motivation to get all your septic needs taken care of before winter.

I should also point out that our house is not the only house with pipes sticking out all over the yard. All of them have it. It makes playing a backyard game of soccer or baseball a bit tricky. And building a deck. Or patio. Or figuring out where to put a playset. Or a fire pit. There is an industry up here for small fake wishing wells that people place over the pipe that everyone has in their front yard for the well. I'm just not a fake wishing well kind of girl. 

Now can someone please tell me why, oh why, this is all necessary? It had better have something to do with permafrost, because it is the only thing that I can think of that would set us apart from all the other states that I have lived in. Stupid permafrost.