Hi I’m Mike. Today on the project list we continue our high tunnel build, but a new
side of it. Without water there’s no point to building a new garden. So today we tackle
the garden irrigation on our Wyoming life.
Welcome back to the project list, as we keep
on working on the high tunnel, we have been making progress here but while the building
of the tunnel is on the top of the list that doesn’t mean that some other pretty important
jobs can’t come in and trump it. Water is the life blood of the ranch, whether
it comes in the form of rain or we pull it out of the ground via wells that are scattered
all over the place. Our water wells vary from 35 feet to 600 feet
deep but each one serves its purpose. Some are used for livestock water, filling ponds
that cows will drink out of all summer, others supply water to houses, corrals and barns
but one of the most used and heavily taxed wells on the ranch is the one that Erin uses
for garden irrigation. This water well feeds all of Erin’s gardens
as well as our houses lawn irrigation and the sprinklers in Erin’s moms yard. In addition,
coming off of this well is a line that runs 3 and ½ miles back on the property with hydrants
in each and every pasture for supplemental water for cows and other livestock. Protecting
us in case a windmill goes down or reservoir dries up or another well stops working.
Water of course is important and having back ups and redundancies is actually pretty smart,
I didn’t set the water system up here but so far it seems to be working pretty well.
Every fall we shut down a lot of the wells around here for winter, blowing out lines
in order to get every last bit of water out of them. Even a drop of water if left to freeze
inside a valve for example will expand and one little bit of water can expand enough
to break metal or crack plastic. A lot of the garden irrigation runs above ground so
this step in our winter prep is very important but even so there are issues that we run into,
the problem is that we won’t know about them until spring and usually by the time
we get all the water turned back on, it’s a matter of, we need water now and fixing
it becomes a priority pretty quick. Once Erin has plants in the ground they are
going to need water, we can’t count on spring rain, so garden irrigation usually gets preference
over all other projects going on at the moment. Erins big garden is 140 feet long by 60 feet
wide and encompasses over 8000 square feet of space. The water for it is fed by 10 different
sprinklers and this portion of the garden irrigation is usually the area that gives
us the most grief every spring. Most of the irrigation utilizes poly pipe,
a hard plastic that is very durable and stands up to winter freezes very well, even if there
is a bit of water left in it but the main garden irrigation uses PVC pipe, for some
reason, and that doesn’t stand up to Wyoming winters at all.
I should switch it all out but that’s a project for another day, for now we can try
turning on the water and fixing any leaks we find. Most of which are pretty small. Usually
the leaks happen at a turn or a joint in the pipe and are easily fixed by replacing the
section or fitting that has broken. On PVC pipe if there is an issue we start
by removing the busted piece and rejoining the ends together using a coupler. Applying
primer to the pvc pieces, then glue and pressing them together.
When the poly pipe or joints within it are the culprit to a leak we can use barb fittings
and hose clamps to put the pieces back together. Just make sure you keep an eye out for the
rooster, who likes to investigate what is going on on his turf, then scare the crap
out of you, when he moves in for the attack. I’m not sure how much longer this rooster
is going to last on the ranch to tell you the truth.
After the entire system is pieced back together and we can test it, but pressure is pretty
low. Our first suspicion is that the line that leads back to the pasture, the one that
goes 3 and half miles back is open and needs to be shut off. If they system has to fill
that line it can take hours, so its time for a quick trip to the well house and pit to
shut it off. But when we arrive we find a whole different
problem and one that is much more serious than a valve left open.
The well pit is flooded. This is not a good thing as you can imagine and means many more
hours of work are involved in this project. The purpose of the pit is to contain all the
plumbing to run the well. Luckily this is a two part well. The little well house to
the side of the well contains all of the electrical components of the well. The pit houses all
the plumbing parts and the actual well is located in between the two.
As far as I can tell at the moment a pipe has burst which has been steadily filling
the pit with water. This pit is 12 feet deep in order to keep all of the plumbing parts
below the frost line. All of the insulation you see floating on the water, that was used
to insulate lines during the winter. The blue tank that is floating as well is the pressure
tank, that keeps the water pressure up and steady and keeps the well pump from cycling
on and off. No matter how you look at it, this is a mess.
There are times that you wish you could just call a plumber to come and fix a problem,
wash your hands of it and come back later and find it done but for us its not much of
an option. A plumber is going to charge a hundred dollars an hour more than likely,
when we know the problem is probably a 5-dollar part that broke. Looks like we are going to
have to tackle this one ourselves. And the first step is to get all the water
out of the pit. After killing all electricity to the well,
after all, death is not on my agenda for today we can start pumping it out. This calls for
a sump pump and a generator to move the water up and out and takes about an hour to accomplish.
By early evening the water is mostly all out, we can see where our leak is coming from,
a broken t in the line but for now its time to pack up, we will let the pit dry out over
night and by morning hopefully it will be a bit dryer down there and a easier to work
in. With the sun coming up this morning, its now
time to get water up and going once again. Or try to anyway. Scrounging through some
of our extra plumbing parts in the barn, luckily enough, I am able to find all the parts we
are going to need to replace the broken t in the line and we can take them and head
down to the pit. After removing the broken pieces of pipe,
we can then start rebuilding, in all reality, a lot of the plumbing down in this pit should
be replaced. Rust has been taking its toll on some of the pipe but for right now our
main goal is to get it up and running again. This summer, maybe on a slow day, I can come
back up and replace a few of the more rusted fittings.
One thing we are going to replace right now though is the pressure tank that we have in
here. We have a brand-new pressure tank that a neighbor purchased and didn’t need, so
we bought it from them for just such an occasion. This tank is a bit bigger than our old one
and will hopefully apply better pressure and more consistent pressure to the gardens.
This is going to be a bit of a trick, its not heavy but it is awkward and I am going
to have to lower it down into the pit and that’s going to require two people.
Luckily, we have great neighbors, who are all happy to help each other out. A quick
phone call gets Gary from about a half a mile down the road, up to give me a hand.
Using the tractor and a rope we can lower the pressure tank down slowly into the pit.
After installing the plumbing to the new pressure tank then we can finish filling it with air.
The pressure tank contains an air bladder that keeps pressure against the water inside
it and thereby always keeping pressure on the water in the lines. Without a pressure
tank water pressure would be constantly fluctuating as the pump would be kicking on and off and
would basically make the irrigation system useless for watering or irrigation to the
gardens. Now its time to pressurize the system, all
leaks should be fixed, the pressure tank should hold pressure for us and there we go. Water
flows, sprinklers work and Erin’s newly planted onions can get a drink.
Not bad work. With a few dollars in plumbing parts and a new pressure tank we have a water
system that the romans would be proud of. Of course, a special thanks to our neighbor
Gary who didn’t mind coming down and giving me a hand when I needed it as well, trust
me, I’ll be returning the favor soon enough. With the water flowing, we are now past the
major spring time hurdle of getting garden irrigation back up and running and we can
move on to the next project, which you can join me for next week. On the project list.
Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss a thing. Erin will be back this week from
the garden and we have a whole bunch of really cool stuff planned for you and its all on
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more. Until next time, have a great week and thanks
for joining us in our Wyoming life.