yesterday the old chevy that i use to haul water would not start ... i called the rancher's brother and told him ... and he just so happened to be breaking ice at one of his wells down the road ... so he came by ...
turns out that the starter is out ... (heard that before) ... so we used his truck to pull start the chevy which was towing the water hauling trailer ... just hooked up a chain ... turned the ignition to on ... put it in second ... kept the chain tight ... 10 mph and a hundred feet, if that ... dropped the clutch ... then braked both vehicles ... as easy as that.
the trick then was to complete four water hauling trips before the truck ran out of fuel ... because i would then need another pull start ... (i had the fuel) ... the brother stuck around until i was done, just in case ...
well, i got the water loaded in both the main tank and the cow trough ... but there is no water yet flowing from the main tank to either the house or the trough ... i am hoping that this nice weather thaws everything out ...
there were four days in a row below zero last week ... last sunday, was -8F ... the neighbors say colder ... and everything froze ... i didn't know it at the time because the water was low in the main tank ... and when that happens, the gravity pressure is not enough to push the water to the house ... (the pressure tank went out before the well went dry) ... so i couldn't drip any faucets ... and the water level in the cow trough dropped below the filling pipe in the water, so it froze too ... (i know this because no water is coming out) ...
i was just given a pointer ... since, we don't want the water level in the cow trough to fall below the filling pipe again ... (and thus freeze again) ... the brother suggested that i siphon the water from the main tank into the cow trough ...
the oklahoma credit card!
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oklahoma credit card
http://adventuresofagreenhorn.blogspot.com/2013/01/oklahoma-credit-card.html
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so i used a garden hose and dropped one end through the ice in the main tank and then ran the hose to the cow trough ... a couple of sucks (like on a pipe) ... and i could hear and feel the water coming through the hose towards the cow trough ... the top of the main tank is probably 8 feet high, the hose was probably 3 feet down into the main tank ... and the the cow trough is twenty feet away, at ground level, with about a two foot high lip ...
ta-da!
we still need everything to thaw out ... and i don't know how to prevent this from happening again ... because i can't haul water when it is below freezing, or else i risk breaking the pump and plastic fittings on the hauling tank ... but if the main house tank gets low, then i can't drip faucets ... and everything freezes ...
catch 22.
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