Second time around is the real deal.

I went out first thing Thursday morning and installed the new piece of pipe and hydrant.  Ideally I would have had some end to end connectors and I could have glued this monstrosity differently, but I do not live next to a hardware store and I did not want to wait all day again for the glue to set up.  So I used what I had on hand.  The old pipe to the side used to supply the hydrant.  It was four feet to the east.  I decided that this was just one more thing to break and would just put it over the main line.  It also gives me a visual marker if I need to dig up the line.  I at least know exactly where one spot is located. 
After that quick assembly I went to the dreaded metal pipe in the backyard.  I crawled down into the hole and started digging away from the exposed pipe so I could get a wrench down low when I looked up and noticed that the spigot was on.  Not only was it on but its handle had become bent sometime in the last two years laying around.  I bent the handle back in place and actually closed the valve.  Could it be that the reason the hole filled up was because I did not shut the valve?  Could it be that I actually installed it correctly the first time?  I called down to the house and got the pump turned on.  No Leaks, NONE!  I had done it, I had successfully installed to outside hydrants in 1.5 days.  Luckily, labor is free when I do plumbing.  I used the tractor and placed 1/3 yard of gravel at the base of each hydrant to allow them to drain after closing the hydrant even in winter.  We don’t use these much in the winter but they sure are nice if you do because they work and don’t freeze afterwards. 

Side yard frost free hydrant.

Backyard frost free hydrant

I spread some more gravel over the new culvert in the barn lot.  I don’t want it to become a mud pit in the winter.  I would like to put some more gravel on the back yard deck but I don’t have enough.  I am waiting for another 10 yards to be delivered.  I was hoping it would show up while I was still on vacation but no luck.  Hopefully, it will show up next week or I will bug the supplier.  I always make sure I have lots of time available for these things.  When you live in a small town/country area there are only so many people to provide services and they are usually busy.  You cannot just get things the same day or even the next, 1-2 weeks is more often the likely time frame. 

Well, winter is almost here.  It can no longer be denied even by those of us who wish differently.  I managed to put off doing any plumbing all summer long.  The real problem is last year I said I would install the frost free outside spigot/hydrant in the front yard.  I had the hole dug and did not do it.  I had to fill the hole with straw to prevent the main house supply from freezing.  I then had to install a cap to the backyard spigot and then apply heat tape and insulation to keep it from freezing. I was again approached by the lovely wife to actually get the two frost free spigots installed this year.  To this end I paid my nephew to dig the back line up and redig the front spigot hole, as it had gotten partially filled in.  This was done by midsummer.  The holes sat there as stark reminders that I should actually do something about them.  I ignored them.  The backyard one is kinda in the way to get to the new deck area.  It is possible to drive the tractor past without actually ending up in the hole.  Wednesday was the day of plumbing.  I had everything I thought I needed already and decided that I would need all day to do this magical task.  I can do a lot of things, and some of them very well but plumbing just seems to elude me.  I have not done a single plumbing task correctly on the first try, EVER!  There is just something about it that I just don’t get.  I now plan on simple tasks taking a day or two because nothing is going to go right and I will need to redo the project at least once. 

I wanted to remove this 18 inch section of pipe that actually had a threaded joint and a slip on joint.  I was going to add the hydrant to this section so if there was a problem I would be able to easily replace a small section of pipe and could take it out of the hole to work on.  It sounded like a good plan except I could not screw the pipe joint apart.  It was PVC pipe and it would not unscrew.  I finally resorted to a metal pipe wrench on both parts but still could not get it to unscrew.  I did however notice that I was stressing the joint and wondered if that would come back to haunt me later. I had all the needed parts so I attempted to glue the parts together.  No biggie as I had lots of old cans of PVC glue out in the shed, two from last year.  I tossed out four cans of dessicated and hardened glue.  I had to run to the local hardware store and thankfully they had some PVC glue.  I came back to the house and glued in the T piece and let it sit outside the hole for a few hours.  I then went to replace the backyard hydrant.  I needed to remove a four foot long piece of galvanized metal.  It would not budge!  I tried some WD-40 on the joint but to no avail.  I found a four foot chunk of pipe to slip over the handle of the pipe wrench.  This makes for some serious leverage, but after the few metal things I have broken this summer I went easy on the power and tried more finesse and steady pressure instead of reefing and swearing at it.  The pipe came out and I screwed the hydrant in without any complications.  Five minutes once I had the cheater pipe.  All plumbing jobs should be this easy.  I then went to town that afternoon to get all the PVC parts to do the job one more time.  I had plans to apply water pressure that evening but if there were any complications I would not be able to go to the hardware store and would have to wait.  The $10 was cheap insurance.  That evening I installed the PVC pipe and got it all tightened down and ready to go.  I called my mother-in law to start the pump.  Both our houses are on the same pump and there is no isolation valve so if one of us has a leak we both lose water.  She fired it up and all my joints I added held wonderfully.  It was pure magic, except for the large stream of water shooting out from the old joint I stressed with my large metal pipe wrench.  It had a jet of water leaking by a one inch section.  I had to call and quickly get the water turned off before the hole filled up with water.  I ended up having to dig the hole a little bigger to allow me access with a hack saw to cut the pipe.  I had no simple end to end glue joints.  I glued a hole new section together with parts of the one I just removed and let it dry in the house.

Then I remembered I had not checked on the backyard hydrant.  The entire hole was filled to the top with water!  The main pipe at the bottom of the hole has a 3/4 inch valve and a 90 degree elbow and a reduction joint.  I was not certain where the leak was at.  I am sure my gentle application of pressure with a four foot cheater bar had broken a piece of the 80+ year old pipe buried in the ground.  There was so much water that it was just going to have to wait until morning, plus it was starting to get dark.  I smelled like pipe glue and primer so Annmarie made me go to my mother’s house and shower.  Plumbing is always painful, never easy and done twice at a bare minimum. 

Milk shed area scrap cleaned up.

Well I spent most of Sunday just tinkering around the place.  I had volunteered for a closet remodel at the church rectory and it took four days to get it to the trim needed status but the lumber yard is closed on Sunday so I had time to get a little work done around the farm.  I went out and installed bungies on all the new gates in the barn.  I thought I had bolt on eye hooks but I could not find any so I had to use the threaded kind.  I am not sure how well they will hold up.  The bungies keep the doors shut even when they are not latched.  Annmarie had threatened to add a pull cord to make the new double door latch work from the outside.  She used some bailing twine.  I rearranged it and added another eye hook and used some parachute cord to make it all pretty and easier to operate. 
I cleaned out the milk shed.  We had stacked all the old wood earlier in the summer but there was a large trash pile by the entrance.  I tossed it in the pickup and picked up more nails from the ground.  I had a list of 34 things that needed to be done before winter.  I am down to 14 now but some of those are pretty big items.  They are going to have to wait till next year. 
I put the cow protein lick out by the machine shed so as soon as we let the cows in to the car area to feed them everything is ready.  Our two picked on alpaca have had access to our front yard and they come in every day and work on the lawn.  I may not have to do the last mowing of the year!  The larger black one is getting fat, the super skinny one is starting to put on some weight.  He looks better, doesn’t look like he is going to keel over and die at any moment any longer. 
My baby chickens are still alive and doing well.  The hen throws a fit whenever I have to reach in and fix the water or add food.  Last night when I went out to the chicken coop my five new brahma chickens were roosting in the nest boxes.  I had to throw them all out while I was getting eggs.  That could be why the eggs are getting broken. 
I have put off installing the yard water hydrants so long that now they must be done.  Tomorrow is the big day I have to do some plumbing.  I cannot wait…

Milk shed crap.

They really are alive.

They want a treat.  They will come to me just calling their names.  I almost always have a treat!

New babies!  Homegrown.

13 babies.

Last week Annmarie spotted a lone white chicken out in the barn hidden under some hay.  She was sitting on 20 eggs.  It was the beginning of the month so we had decided to give her 25 days to hatch any chicks.  Annmarie started checking on the hen every day to see if any chicks hatched.  Yesterday morning she found chicks!  Lots of chicks.  I was heading out to get the cow hay so there was no time to catch chicks.  We decided to do it later in the afternoon.  I hauled over 24 bales of hay and our neighbor brought the 25th one and stacked all the big bales in the machine shed. 
We went out to catch chicks.  The hen was not happy.  She kept trying to peck us.  Eight of the little buggers were stuck between the outside door and barn.  Annmarie was catching them when one dashed under the barn.  I had to try and squeeze past the outer paneling I installed a few years ago.  There was some loud discourse on the fact that I did not install a gate to get under the barn.  It will need to happen eventually.  I ended up crawling halfway under the barn and could not catch the chick it disappeared.  I had Annmarie run to the other side of the barn and the chick had snuck out.  She snagged it and we tossed the hen into the box with the babies.  We took them to chicken fort knox in the coop.  I had to go back out to the barn to get the dog and decided to throw out the eggs from the nest that had hatched and the unopened one.  I didn’t want them to rot in the barn.  I heard the occasional chirp when I was grabbing all the eggs and kept digging around in the straw for any missing chicks.  I never found any and the sound was pretty infrequent.  I took the eggs out to the barn lot and started breaking them on a rock so they would get eaten.  Most of the eggs broke right open, but a couple just bounced.  Then I heard the chirping again from an egg I had just tossed down.  I had to peel the shell off a baby chick.  It was still alive!  It was barely moving.  I found another one that had to be peeled out of its shell.  I decided to take them back to the coop and put them under the warming light in the hopes that they would survive.  I do realize that natural selection was at work and I was violating the principles by helping the chicks out of their shells.  When I went out a couple hours later to check on the two stragglers one had survived and one had expired.  Not bad 50% survival rate.  Today all the chicks were running around chirping their little hearts out!  Free baby chicks!  Now I hope that more than 50% are girls and not boys. 

Alfalfa for hay.

Back elevated garden spot progressing.

Friday was the day of death around our house.  The butcher called on Thursday to say he would be out Friday morning at 0700.  I called Annmarie and had her and Zeke put the sheep into the barn so we could sort them Friday morning early.  She said Zeke did great and got the sheep in with no problem other than they just didn’t want to go into the barn.  It takes a couple of weeks of feeding them in the barn before they learn the barn is a great place.
We went out at 0600 to sort off the wethers.  We ended up banding and tagging three little boys.  We sorted all the wethers off and had almost 20 sheep.  We then ran all the other sheep out of the barn and ran the leftover wethers through the sorting chute one more time and snagged the 11 biggest lambs.  We then ran them out the end of the barn and into our new corral.  The butcher showed up at 0710.  He liked the new corral and ran all the animals into the chute then just walked down the chute and grabbed the closet animal.  He processed 11 animals over four hours.  He is usually faster but he had cut his finger earlier in the week and was wearing a glove and being a lot more careful. 

He kept cleaning the animals off and made a little bit of a mud pit at the end of the chute.  I am going to order another 10 cubic yards of gravel and will just have it dumped in front of the chute.  That way I will be able to spread some out and make a gravel area with lots of drainage.  He won’t need to come back until next year. 

I used up the rest of the afternoon moving gravel to the back elevated garden.  I am getting closer but not sure that I won’t run out of gravel again.