My second worst nightmare!

 My worst nightmare is not getting summer rain. My second worst nightmare is getting summer rain and losing it in a leaky tank. Last night around 8 PM  the stucco tank level was 29" from being full. I double-checked to be sure. Yup, 29". At around 8 AM I checked to see if it lost any in the night and was horrified to find it was 31½" down. And you could see a 2½" line around the tank where it had gone down that much, no mistake. That would equal 5" per day of water loss. The tank would be empty in no time. So I decided, since I had two willing strong men there to help (brothers Russ and Rance Rogers), I'd pump it into the dirt tank, patch the tank, and put it back in.

I think everything that could go wrong, went wrong. All day long we struggled with various gas pumps and hose configurations to make it happen. I lost count of how many times they moved a heavy gas pump. First one wouldn't pump, so we replaced it with another. It pumped for awhile, then lost its prime when the tank got low. Couldn't get it primed, so switched to all new hose configuration and an electric pump. We added a second smaller gas pump to speed things up. They came to photograph birds. That didn't happen. The only reason I survived working for 12 hours is because they did the heavy lifting. They are my angels.

Tomorrow they're going to return to work hours to hook up a third 3" gas pump so I can pump the water back into the stucco tank once its patched. 

But wait, that isn't all! We finally got the tank empty, and I cannot find a leak. The only other place to look is under the mud in the middle of the tank. I'm quite sure it doesn't leak there, but tomorrow I'm going to crawl around in 4 inches of mud, covered with an inch or two of water (pumps can't get it all), and feel around for a hole in an area about 12' X 12'. Most likely, a non-existent hole.

Then, back to all day pumping water back into the tank, hole or no hole. If the pump won't draw water, then I'll have to do it in 2 days with an electric pump. I can't imagine a worse nightmare than today!