More Rain!

DRAT! Just when my road was drying out I got hit last night with almost 3/4" of rain. By the time it ended, I checked my catchment tank and it was only about 10 gallons away from running out through the overflow. Not only am I swamped in again - but a lightning strike VERY close by blew out my primary inverter.

This morning I removed the inverter from service and opened it up. It has 6 fuses inside but they were all good - so it must be the internal circuitry that failed. Vector Maxx is the brand name and it is the second one that has failed. I did some research online and found a guy who has reverse engineered this brand and found fatal flaws in the design - the reason they are inexpensive. I ordered another brand to try out and will rely on my backup inverter till it arrives. Will report back once it is in service.

After opening up the fried inverter ( thereby voiding the warranty ) I decided to transfer some water out of my catchment tank into one of the larger tanks that will go with the greenhouse catchment system. My pump runs off the battery from my truck - I have since learned that it is imperative to keep the engine running when doing so. Pumped 125 gallons out to leave room for the next rain. The transferred water will be used for mixing concrete down the road.

Tried to fire up the dune buggy but it wouldn't start...probably because its been rained on a couple of times. Removed the link to the air filter and sprayed some gas into the carburetor and it finally fired up. One of my tires seems to have a slow leak so I pumped in some SLIME. This product seeks out and fills leaks internally. Now that I was mobile - I drove out to survey the road damage around me from last nights rainfall... lets just say it's a mess out there.

Last function of the day was to call the National Weather Service. A representative is looking for some full time residents out here to give daily reports on temperature, humidity, and rainfall. The woman I spoke to is going to call next Monday for a road report before trying to come out to visit my site. If all goes well, they will install some equipment on my property and I will have to submit a daily report via email. She informed me that the rainy season should be ending very soon....I hope she is right - I need another full day of NO RAIN so I can get out and get some ICE.

Which leads me to the thought of the day: Can't vs. Don't Need To. Interesting dilemma in that I didn't really need to go anywhere today but because I couldn't get out - I really wanted to. Guess that's part of the human condition - we seem to always want what we can't have.