Just Another Day in the Wet Mountains

A day of breakdowns and fixing things.

1. It began with a continuation of yesterday afternoon, when a neighbor and I finally located an underground leak on the water line from the communal well (serves six households). We called in a backhoe operator, dug up the line, and fixed the break yesterday.

Today, after checking that the leak seemed to be stopped, we filled in the trench. But did I have time for breakfast? No . . .

2.  . . . because I had to meet the assistant fire chief and fill two 1,000-gallon tanks that serve as a firefighting reservoir during summer months.

And the pump on the brush truck (our sole engine) was acting up, so we had to do it with the  floating pump (video above), which puts out maybe 45 gallons per minute (?) -- and which is a whole lot louder than it sounds on the video. I could hear it running from half a mile away when I made a short trip to the post office.

But you cannot have a malfunctioning pump on the fire apparatus, so we went to the county road-and-bridge shop, where the fire chief is employed, and disassembled and cleaned the fuel system with solvents and compressed air.

(Apparently no one put fuel-stabilizer in the gasoline over the winter, and various sorts of gunk were plugging the internal valves and screens.)

3. Then I came home, and M. told me that northern flickers were again trying to nest inside the back wall of the guest cabin, so I nailed up two more plywood patches, adding to the collection already there, to thwart their housekeeping plans.

4. Finally, Fisher the Chessie had to go to the vet's in Cañon City because of an ear infection.

There was the day.