You guys are great.

Had a busy first half of the morning. J had one gallon of color coat left from his house, so I went out early to finish painting his small horse shelter. One gallon is almost exactly enough to do that after two coats of primer.

Today H is scheduled to bring back a bunch more paint, so tomorrow morning should see the end of the project. And just as Monsoon is starting to crank up, so good timing.

But this morning I had only gotten started when the phone rang. D&L – who are always doing things for me and rarely ask for anything – have been having water problems all week. The contractor they finally hired to track down the issue had to do some re-design – this is a topic for another chapter in Never Completely Lose; “the first contractor always screws you over.” – and at the end of that their output pressure had increased 50% from before their troubles began. Next morning – this morning – their tank was nearly empty and they had water flowing out of the french drain below the rubble trench that comprises their workshop’s foundation. Big New Problem! Need Help Digging!

Okay, I said, I’m up to my elbows in paint at this moment but the job won’t take an hour. I’ll go there directly I’m done here.

So I did and found D knee-deep in a hole beside the workshop, digging up one of his hydrants. We started working like Mexicans – one on the pick, one on the shovel – and things sped up considerably. Shortly after we hit gravel the hole started filling with water, so he had guessed right as to the source of the water. We dug up the hydrant, which for some reason had suddenly decided to start leaking copiously from its lower threads. D thinks it’s related to the increase in pressure, which I suppose is possible. I’m not completely convinced about the explanation but there’s no question where the water was coming from so I guess it doesn’t matter. We shut off the water but it’s the lowest point in the system so of course the hole filled with water and needs to drain down before we can fix it.

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to write about. A couple of days ago I jokingly bitched about my inability to achieve instant gratification re: the new Larry Correia book, and since then I’ve received no less than 3 emails. One guy is sending me the dead-tree book. One person has promised to send me a surplus Kindle as soon as she removes its files, and then this morning I got a gift certificate for a Baen ebook.

And so what I actually wanted to say when I sat down to write this post is that you guys rock. That is all.