My morning was pretty busy after 6am checking in trucks that were bringing in more and more pipe. A crew also arrived with a large fork lift to unload the trucks. At one time there were a total of 13 semi trucks hanging around somewhere on the back pad. I'm sure it was getting crowded back there.
I was up shortly after 1pm and after a shower I started working on the Freightliner. I had the battery charger hooked up all night making sure the batteries would be at full power just in case I had to crank the engine a lot to get it started.
I removed both fuel filters and got the new ones out. They were a little different with the new ones being about twice as long as the old ones. I was not sure if maybe NAPA had sold me the wrong filters and instead of taking a chance on the new ones I decided to just fill the old ones back up with fresh fuel and re-install them. This is a messy process and there is no way to do it without getting soaked in diesel fuel. Maybe I should say that's they way it is with me, I'm sure there are professional mechanics that can do it and not even have to wash their hands afterwards. Me, well I had to take another shower! :-)
Once I got the filters back on and tight I started pumping the little hand pump on the side of the engine. I had been warned this could take a while so I pumped and pumped and pumped some more until I had a lot of resistance in the pump. I tried to start the truck and ........ no go, RATS! So here I go, pump, pump, pump and I kept pumping until I could hardly push the pump in because of the pressure. I tried starting it again ........ crank, crank, crank ..... vrooom! The big Caterpillar engine lives again! I let it run for quite awhile to smooth out the engine and to make sure all was well with it. Man I'm glad I got it going, all I could see was $$ heading out the door to get it running again :-(.
The company man stopped and talked to us for a little while today. He said they are about 2000' from being done with the drilling and should reach that by Sunday if things go well. Once they reach the desired depth they will set the casing pipe in and then tear the rig down. Probably going to be at least another week for all that to happen.
The weather continues to improve with highs flirting with the 70's but still getting pretty cool at night with the lows in the upper 30's. We do love the sunshine and can finally sit outside on the patio some.
One of the workers here gave us a 10lb bag of grapefruit. No way Rudee and I can eat 10 lbs of grapefruit so we divided it up and I delivered some to the surrounding gate guards. There is a new gate just west of us so I dropped some off there and met David, a single gate guard working this location. David asked where we were from and I told him Indiana. He said he grew up in Indiana and wanted to know where we lived at. I told him we lived in Lebanon while raising our kids and he got a funny look on his face. He told me he also grew up in Lebanon and left there when he joined the Army eventually landing in Texas. We knew a lot of the same people and had a good time comparing notes of our old hometown. Small world isn't it?
We had some bananas that were getting a little over ripe so Rudee turned them into a nice banana nut bread for us to enjoy for the next several days. She also made a home made pizza for supper. I'm going to have to start exercising soon or I'm going to need a new wardrobe! I'll keep you posted.
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