I’m guessing there’s only one reason to pay attention to the news – and the boobleheads – today. And that would be because – as Okat told us yesterday – that rogue, insurgent, guerrilla (or maybe even gorilla), incredibly handsome, Edward R. Murrow (only better) reincarnation, intrepid reporter and defender of truth & justice, Mike “Hugh” Boettcher, has infiltrated the Goebbels network, and will have a story featured on ‘This Weak’ with Christi Amanpour. If you only watch one talking heads show today, make sure it’s this one. As for the rest? Eh, who gives a crap. Speaking of crap…

Yesterday would have been a nice day if it hadn’t been for the wind, which was relentless (and cold). Not too bad when standing in a four foot deep hole, though. If only I could have spent more time deep down in the hole without having to do so much shoveling by hand. Oh, the back is not happy with me this morning. Nor are the knees (and we won’t even mention the shoulder).

But I’m pleased to report that we managed to repair the crushed and broken pipe. Sadly, we had to dig out a lot more than we’d counted on, though, because the pipe they used 35 years ago was very thin-walled and brittle. It shattered like glass when you breathed on it (or even near it), so we wound up replacing a lot more than we’d hoped to when we started. It was also a challenge transitioning from the old to the new, because this old pipe was actually a bit small for the new fittings. A real pain, but thankfully it’s not like this stuff is under pressure (and they hadn’t even bothered to glue the old fittings, so this has to at least be no worse). At least water should make it through the pipe now. Necessity was the mother of invention when it came to the new distribution box, as we cut up and cobbled together a storage bin to use as a cover, and tried to pile rocks and plastic shards around to cover any large gaps. Again, the old one had nothing covering it but dirt, so this should be no worse.

At least I now know where it’s located (duly photographed and annotated with the modern, electronic equivalent of 8×10 color glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph – in audio format – on the back explaining each one), should I ever need to revisit it (hopefully after I’ve had enough time to save up for a backhoe; digging with the front end loader worked rather impressively well, but it isn’t exactly a precision instrument, and left a great deal of devastation – in the form of a 15 foot long, 5 foot wide – not counting the ‘ramps’ – and 3 to 5 foot deep hole to repair).

So today I’ll be trying to use my new pile of topsoil to even things out. Hopefully it won’t be so goddamn windy today. Plus I have a lot of laundry to do – hopefully everything will go (and stay) down the drain the way it’s supposed to.