Ooops... glad he'll recover from it without expected ongoing trouble...
Hey, I wanted to tell you that we reemed out the plumbing vents today then washed them out with the hose. Got a bunch of stuff out, looked like mostly composting leaves. The toilet wouldn't flush and the tub wouldn't even drain last night and, well, we KNEW the septic wasn't stopped up! And I had snaked up from the outside pipe as far as I could (I could hear it chinking on metal inside.)
So far everything seem to be good, so I'm really thinking that the gurgling toilet that started us on this long endeavor was simply being caused by clogged plumbing vents.
But I hate to get my hopes up.
The septic is now working great...when I take off the access toward the leach field and sprinkle a little dust on the water in the septic tank, I can see it steadily moving out and down the pipe.