You Can't Screech to a Halt... In the Mud...

More a slip slidin' along... until you stop moving...

Started raining 'bout midnite the night before last... and rained all day. Not Hard... just that constant, slow, soaking rain...

... just got the phone word that the "Beet Yard" is closed all weekend... It'll take that long for the fields to dry out enough for the farmers to get back to pulling beets.

It's not that they just need dry enough for the equipment to get through the fields, it's if they're too wet they compact. When you run equipment across wet fields, down deep the ground gets compacted hard as concrete. You won't know something is wrong until next year when you try to grow a crop... and little happens. The ground was compacted so hard the roots can't penetrate...

... so we wait...

There's only maybe five days of work left... if we can get to it. The weather man holds promise. Kind of hoping for wind today to help dry things up.

Then Monday morning we'll hit it hard and run for the finish. There are some piling stations that have been able to get in a few loads so the Tare Lab operated... a whole hour last night! Buuuuut... work an hour... get paid for four... can't grouse too hard.

I'm ready to roll south with our accounts a bit healthier than they were. It's some easier to go down the road knowing there's tire money in the bank if you shred one.

It's looking good for a few days with the kids in Denver... and doing some truck work while there... to get us south and through the winter...

Tires, and a growing starting issue... Batteries? A Mis-operating pre-heater? another alternator? something is intermittently taking amperage so I'll try to find that... Then in the southland this winter those house/solar batteries are aged... been gonna replace 'em for two years! :) this winter should see it done.

But first... we gotta roll through Colorado and get to Avondale for another week of work at PIR (Phoenix International Raceway)

With all those jobs out of the way I've got this winter marked down to a single minded focus on writing. I won't be doing much of anything else. I've got it in my mind to create the next two volumes THIS winter.

 One for the Jeb Taylor series, and the next to continue Ben Jensen's tribulations.

Those will be published if all goes well sometime around  March/April 2014.

I foolishly took it easy for too long and lost the momentum I'd gained with the first three books...  Now with #4, Shadow on the Mountain  just released, that activity is coming back.

So with that lesson well in mind this is to be a winter of words! ;) and that means Work son! Sit down, engage the brain pan and get the movie reel in my head spinning in high gear.

Both series seem to be gaining some momentum on Amazon and in Barnes & Noble's Nook store. They look to be gaining a bit of ground with their ranking dropping into far lower numbers with the two FREE books. That's juuuuust starting to carry through to the next two that are for sale. Sweet!

So... lots going on... lots yet to come...

I Just Need the Weather to Cooperate!
Brian