Tank nightmare update

Yesterday morning I looked the tank situation over in a somewhat less exhausted state. The puddle of mud and water hadn't gone down a speck so I was sure there was no leak there. I decided to just use up all the cement, Drylok coating, and patching stuff I had on hand. So I worked around the inside wall of the tank patching some  really bad spots that had never leaked before and had no water trickling into the tank. Behind the peeling mess of old patching, old thin cement, etc. was just hard  mud, softened bedrock or whatever you call it. Kind of like caliche turned to rock and then softened. Anyway, I went about coating that hard mud with patching stuff as best I could, then covering it with a coating of Drylok, This was all happening in the opposite side of the tank from where I've ever had any leaks before. So when I was peeling back the spalling wall on one spot, there was a nickel-sized hole in the mud. Nothing but leakage could have caused that. Doing all that work and painting on 2 gallons of Drylok really wore me out, but by then all help was gone and I was on my own.

I ate brunch, took a nap, and tackled the pump to put the water back into the tank. Where Rance and Russ had hooked up the designated pump for the job, the connections blew out as soon as I started the pump. So I put a screw in one side of the rubber connector. Put rockpiles under the line so that it wouldn't sag under the weight of the water (all this on a slippery steep slope on the edge of the dirt tank), then added a different fitting to the other end that blew out so it would be harder to blow out. Eventually, by 5 pm I got the water moving. It was dark when I finished. And since I had promised my husband I'd go to town, I headed for town promptly.

Driving at 70 MPH on the "flats" before getting into the mountainous area, I had the highway all to myself. Not a vehicle anywhere in sight, coming or going. After a time a vehicle far behind me slowly gained on me until it was right behind me, then lights flashed. I immediately pulled over and got out of the car, asking why I was being stopped. I couldn't imagine a reason. The officer told me I'm supposed to stay inside my vehicle (I didn't know that), so I jumped back inside, declaring, "I'm in, I'm in."

Next he informed me I had crossed the center line, apparently once or twice, he was never clear on that. Well, I worry about deer jumping out in front of me in the middle of the night, so yeah, I probably didn't stay 100% inside the line when having the road to myself, no curves or anything. So he gave me a warning ticket. Here it is. So funny that my beat up old pickup is listed as a 2021. It's actually a 2011. It shows on the very bottom of this photo, "Failed to Drive in Single Lane." (I didn't show the officer's name.)

All the drugs, illegals, and who knows what else crossing the borders here, and he zeroed in on me. I wonder if it's an adrenalin rush to pull someone over on a deserted highway in the middle of the night.

 

On a much more exciting note. There are a couple of old banded female Lucifers at the oasis. May be record-old if we can figure out which they are. I've encouraged photographers to try to get photos of the bands. Here's one taken yesterday by Kathy Clark. I'll let you know what, if anything, we can learn from it as soon as I hear back from the bander, Kelly Bryan.

And if that isn't enough excitement for one day, my sisters came upon  two fledgling Lucifers just out of the nest, way up our mountain where we know they nest. I call it the "nursery." It appears, from what I was told, that they were practicing short flights. (Photo taken with their little bridge camera from a distance.) They'll be visiting the feeders soon.

Things like that make it all worthwhile. I won't know about the tank leakage until I get back down there. Part of the water I removed from the stucco tank I put into the big concrete tank. It has started leaking at the top, but not farther down. So by topping it off day before yesterday, it leaked an inch per day. Since the surface area of it is twice that of the stucco tank, that equals about 2" per day if it had been in the stucco tank. I'll put it back into the stucco tank when I get back there, assuming the stucco tank is no longer leaking. Whew!