Happy Independence Day, and stuff...
First off, a Happy Independence Day to my American friends! I know that the day is almost over, but this was the first moment I've had to get online today!
Yesterday was a vast improvement over the night before; Apparently, Darrel had come in extra-early to debug the pump-controller and get it working properly. So many Kudos to him for doing that, as it sure made everyone's life a lot easier! I don't know exactly what he did, but I suspect it mostly involved a total shut-down, wait a few minutes, and total re-start. While that might have been difficult to do while we were open and attempting to serve customers, it probably would have been easier and less inconvenient to everyone than the Hell we went through with everything malfunctioning.
We had a few moments of unpleasant weather when a cloudburst and hail-storm came through, but we only got pea-sized soft hail; That's nothing compared to the tennis-ball sized hard hail that had been smashing down on people just a few miles North the day before! Still, with the driving winds and cold rain pouring down, it wasn't a nice time to be out pumping gas; And people will actually expect you to come out and pump their %*&#$ gas in the midst of a storm, though they can't be bothered to get out of their cars themselves. Fortunately, business was pretty slow yesterday, so we only had two people come in during the storm; One decided to wait it out with me inside ("Let's wait 'til this blows over!" he said.) but the other person stood out there in the hail and pumped his own gas. It turned out to be Morgan, and he was wearing a hard-hat from work! The hail wasn't that hard or heavy, but we joked with him about it anyway.
The rest of the evening was pleasant enough; The rain refreshed everything, and even the mosquitos stayed away! It was just Clinton and Myself on duty, and that was fine with me. I enjoy working with Clinton; He's honest and hard-working, and though he's a little "slow" his hard work ethic and enthusiasm more than compensates. I'm finding that I really dislike it if someone asks if he's retarded or something; I guess that technically, under the old standards, he might be classified as such, but I feel that would be a mistake. I'd rather say that he's "A couple of french-fries short of a Happy Meal" or something along that line; He doesn't have the Mongoloid appearance of someone with Down's Syndrome, and he's actually very bright. His only problems are his speech impediment, and he does have some trouble with writing and spelling. Still, from what I've seen out there, his reading and writing skills aren't as bad as some other teen-agers'!
Clinton came over to the farm this morning to help me move the entertainment console into the living room. After more than two years, it's finally where it belongs! This also means that many of the boxes that have been sitting downtairs for the last two years can also finally be unpacked! He also helped feed the horses, and helped load stuff from the auction into my truck. Ah, to be that young and energetic again! He's offered to help with a lot of the jobs around the farm, and I may very well take him up on that.
When it came time for the 7pm feeding, Trixstir and I also gave all of the horses (I include Molly in that group, though she's technically a Hinny) their shots. This is a combined 4-way shot including a West-Nile vaccine, very imporant with the bumper-crop of mosquitos this year. Molly and Charles didn't even flinch, PoohBear startled but calmed down, and Dirk flinched and then relaxed. Bonnie, however, was a total nut-case about it, and I wound up losing the dose all over the floor when she jerked away. At $50 a dose, that's more than a little annoying! They all need a secondary booster-shot in a month's time, and I'm going to see if I can't just buy a bulk vial of the stuff at a better price, rather than the expensive pre-measured doses.
We caught the end of Mythbusters, watched a comedy-fest, and then Trixstir called it a night while I came downstairs to update the journal. Tomorrow we're going to Swift Current for a check-up, and I hope that Trixstir has a better night than last night; The baby was kicking up a storm all last night, and making things really miserable for her. It will all be over soon though; Just a little over two weeks if everything stays on schedule!