Things just keep getting difficult.
Arrived home Friday night, determined to run out the 350 foot of hoses needed to top the stock tanks. Of course, it took 20 minutes to untangle them. I asked my son to hook two of the hoses together, in prep for taking them out of the garage and hooking up. He promptly cross threaded them, and I about blew a gasket, poor guy. My hands were pretty sore from work, and I could not get it unseated. In utter frustration I gave up on that, and simply bucketed water from one tank into the other for the evening.
The next morning I managed to get them apart and I got both tanks filled to the brim. It's a bit of a struggle draining them, coiling them back up, and into the garage, but doable because we have bascially no snow yet this winter.
So, I am inside having lunch and my excavating contractor buddy calls, do I have time to show him what I need done? Ayep, no problem. So he shows up and we go over what needs to be done up there. And then my neighbor shows up with the replacement hydrant, and a length of steel pipe to set it in too. So the two guys get to talking, and now here is the game plan:
They are going to trench from the old hydrant over to the barn (almost 70 foot) and put the new hydrant right at the barn itself, just outside the roof area in front of one post. My excavator is going to get me a good deal on new copper water line as well as heat trace cable to lay the length of the trench. My neighbor is bringing over an old round bale and they are stuffing that into the trench too, under the blue board I need to get to go on top....four inches worth (I need 12 pcs. 8 foot long, ouch!) They will bucket over some of that pit run gravel I have underneath the old one, to under the new one, for additional drainage. Neighbor even offered to come over and do all the hooks up and whatnot, to make sure I never have to deal with NO WATER in the winter months again.
This plan does a couple really handy things....first, no hoses strung out over the parking and driving area in the summer. With it being so close, this means I can go from 150 foot of hose, to about 75 for watering...don't think I can quite make it with a 50 footer, it would be very close though, back to Sully's tank.
I am going to owe my neighbor big time over this, he's been wonderful!! He even has plans to come add some more receptacles to the barn, on the opposite side too, woot woot!
With luck, this will all be done by next weekend, when the new horse arrives :)
2 comments:
OK, usually I like snow, but I cannot IMAGINE trying to deal with that much snow with horses! I hope you get the water situation sorted out soon.
Consider the alternative ;)
Years ago, I was responsible for ten head of horses. The well on the old farm was barely adequate for the caretakers place. If the stock tanks were filled using the well, it would take a couple days to recover....my solution was to haul water.
Of course this was before poly tanks were readily available, so I ended up with a steel pickup tank in the back of my truck. I would fill the tank at my work, drive over, and use gravity and a two inch fire hose to fill the one tank. For the other, I had a small pump and hose rig.
The horses went through over 100 gallons a day of course. The tank I had for transport held 90 gallons. Some days, I made two runs to top the tanks.
I did this for a couple of winters, every single day, or twice a day.
It sucked, it really did. I don't have a tank these days, so having to deal with that much hose is a necessity....but thankfully we have not had any significant snow. If we did, I would have to add another 100 foot to reach the furthest stock tank from the house. As it is, I can run the hoses up there the back way, instead of down the drive.
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