...water, and no leaks. Fire in the stove all day, and house warming up nicely. Everything unloaded and most things stored properly. Larder stocked with an adequate supply of groceries. Even a short dog walk, around through Tysons (the creek is running merrily). (All this frequently interrupted by conversations with friends met along the way, which is why we are behind schedule.)

It was right about 3 a.m. last night that I found the Guzzler pump, and it was exactly where I left it last year when I finished fixing it.—in the garage lean-to. And darned if it wasn’t in exactly the same spot this morning when I took a look. However, (and this is revolutionary) I didn’t need it.

Shop-vacs can rattle around the sub-conscious only so long before they demand real world trial and testing. So, this morning, a shop-vac was schlepped down to the pump house, a shop-vac plugged in, a s-v hose duct-taped to waterline intake—and then, behold, in less than a minute, 100 feet of 1.25 inch black poly totally filled, and water dribbling out around the jet pump. This, let me say, is significancy better than the way things were back in the day (e.g. last year, and the year before that and, and, and…) It used to be that the normal, necessary routine was to kneel before the Guzzler pump, in gurgling mud, and pump strenuously, for 20, 30 minutes.

Do fish think? Yes, but not fast enough!

Thamks to Don Lloyd for mentioning the shop vac idea.