It never fails

Whenever I get a big rain I think that I'm set up to pump water from the dirt tanks without having to go swimming, but it never happens. Yesterday we went to pump out one of the dirt tanks and because we had taken the pump to town to get fixed last year and hadn't hooked it back up, the intake line wasn't connected to the pump during the deluge and had disappeared below 7' of water. I went fishing for it and found the end of it. When we pulled it out of the water...

...it turned out that half of it had come disconnected somehow (hadn't been used since Aug 2010) so without the bottom part with the intake filter we couldn't use it. I'm not good enough in the water to be willing to dive that deep because it would have to be extricated from a very heavy  protective sleeve, which would have been half-buried in mud by now, and of course, is in the deepest part of the tank in order to get the most water pumped out. The water was ice cold and if I'm under too long the coldness closes my bronchial tubes. Not worth the risk at my age. So we hooked up a smaller spare pump which takes forever to pump the tank.  We had to come to Alpine while the tank was still half full. I'll be back down there tomorrow for 3 day and can pump it then. Right now everything's pretty much full and no where to pump it to anyway. We have a 10,000 gallon above ground tank that we were trying to fill. The dirt tanks don't hold water as long, so I try to get the water moved as soon as possible. Right now I'm not too concerned because it's just the beginning of rainy season and there'll be more rains to top things off.

Finally got some agave stalks hauled down from Alpine to decorate my hummingbird garden.

Kidding! I use them for perches and natural nesting holes for Ladder-backed Woodpeckers and Elf Owls. Given the choice between agave and utility poles, they always choose the agave. That tallest one was there from a couple of years ago and has nests of both species in it (see posts for April 25 & May 2, or click on those species on the labels list).