Water!

Plumbers showed up today and installed the well pump and pressure tank. As soon as it was wired into the electrical panel, we had water. It ran brown for a while (agitated rust from the inside of the well casing) but cleared up nicely. I filled a gallon jug and drank it for the rest of the day. Tasted good to me. We'll get it tested to see if it's high in anything harmful. The gas guy showed up as well. He buried the gas line that will run under the slab to the kitchen island cooktop. That's all he needed to do until we get ready to install everything else. The rough plumbing is just about done for the first floor. The plumbing inspector might come next Wednesday. The rest of the plumbing will come when we're back from our six month hiatus.

Tropical Storm Hanna is due to arrive tomorrow evening bringing with her heavy rainfall and some wind. The house should be ready. I spent most of today plastered to the south side roof battling light gusts of wind as I tried to nail down the roof cover. By the end of the day I had almost run out of the 2000 nails I bought to do the job. Working on the north side was less stressful because the shed roof was there in case I made a mistake. I can walk on the shed roof and easily stop myself from accidentally sliding off. The only thing on the south side to arrest a fall is a 2x4 screwed to the edge. Another two sets of 2x4's were screwed to the roof on the way to the peak. To keep myself from falling off, I tried as much as possible to keep my center of gravity against the roof with my feet flat against the 2x4 brace. Working this way, especially for long stretches of time, requires serious concentration. It reminded me of a profile John McPhee wrote about Bill Bradley back when Bradley played basketball for Princeton called A Sense of Where You Are. Bradley had a knack for knowing where he was in relation to everyone else and the basket. Eyes in the back and sides of his head. Working on a roof safely means that you've got know where your feet are at all times. With only one and a half inches between you and a 20' drop, one slight misstep can mean a broken leg at best. Keeping your center of gravity against the roof is easier (gravity more or less sticks you there), but working that way is tiring. At one point my 2x4 braces overlapped at a joint. Working backwards it's easy to forget that there's a small step down (0r up). You get a feeling of where your feet should be, and when you go to step and the next 2x4 is three inches down from where you think it should be, for a split second you suffer a small heart attack.