Posted on 09/01/2024 6:06:00 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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Watering chickens and livestock and hunting dogs in the winter months is a PITA - but kind of necessary if you want everyone to stay alive! ;)
I have two chicken watering cans, and one stays in the house somewhere so it doesn’t freeze, then I swap that one out in the morning for the semi-frozen one in the coop and keep alternating them every day or so. Works for me and The Girls. ;)
With the dogs, when temps are freezing, we put a scoop of water in with their dry kibble when we feed them. That way they are FORCED to drink through the water to get at the kibble. They DO have water pans, but they’re not good about drinking enough water when it’s cold.
The mule? I keep an iron bar near his water trough and break the ice out of it in the mornings.
First time we got online to look at RE it came up (Tuesday), looked at it Thursday, had an offer in by noon Friday & found out it was accepted at 6:15 that night. When we closed 2-3 weeks later, we found out the deed was dated on my mom’s birthday. A relocation company had the property & the former owners pre-signed everything on that date. The place was ‘meant to be’, almost like it was waiting for us. We are 10 minutes down the road from my dad’s home farm (my brother inherited & sold it this spring) & dad is buried about 15 minutes away. One reason we are moving, none of mom’s family are left (NC where she grew up), but there are 25-30 of dad’s folks & after they got over the shock of us moving, they have been very welcoming. This December, I won’t have to drive 2 hours to get to the annual family dinner/get-together.
I LOVE the shop, among other things. My dad would have loved it too & one of my great pleasures is looking out the back at the mountains with the double French doors open & making things with his tools.
Well now you've done it. This is all it really needs so I'll give it a go.
And along that vein...
My “old” 3/4” 75’ hose is welded to the 25 ft. 5/8” hose it was connected to before I went on this “tear” of upgrading our hose / watering [etc.] system. Brass to aluminum, I think. I’d just pulled it apart to apply some anti-seize back in late June. Didn’t get back for a repeat soon enough.
Anybody know if a long soak in CLR or iron residue remover might help? PB Blaster has no effect, likely because this needs a different chemical to dissolve the corrosion. I have the same problem with a connection of rusty steel (that some Chinese company plated to look like brass) to real brass.
I included Pollard here, as I figured if anyone would know, he would. Hate to lose $6(?) brass male ends and have to “redo” the hose ends if there’s a way to get these loose. But someone else may know, too...
Thanks, All!
(You already know this info...)
keep-aluminum-and-brass-separated-in-the-marine-environment
I am not in a marine environment, but do not see how you can avoid salts in any water.
And then there were FOUR! Two puppies left this weekend for their fur-ever homes. One went to a brother & sister hunting team that we've known since birth. They chose 'Spot,' or rather, SHE decided on them. ;) The second left before supper last night. 'Joker' went to our hunting friends Stan & Deb - they are long time hunters/dog owners and she will have a great life with them. One more female needs to go to another branch of the same family that took the first pup. Supposedly that's happening today - or very soon. This will be Ridge's first dog of his own - he's about 8, but there will be plenty of help from big brother and sister who took the first pup.
Beau is keeping 'Comanche' (largest Male) and 'Blackfoot' (at my request; she's one of the first born pups that I fed every two hours while Taylor (Mama) was having the remainder of the pups via c-section) so they will still be here with me into the Fall when they will get their own Doggy Condos. He is taking the second male 'Omaha' with him to Bear Camp to deliver him to the new owner. So, my life should be a BREEZE starting this week with only TWO underfoot. Yay!
The pups treed their first cat yesterday morning at 6am. Yep, it was my big Tomcat, Boyd. No harm was done. The pups stayed on the tree and Beau gave them a bunch of loving up as positive reinforcement for doing what they are bred to do. Boyd had no comment but stayed in last night and actually slept with me. He's been a good Training Aid for the many puppies raised here.
It is going back to HOT (HIGH 80's) and continuing to be DRY so I'm kind of letting the garden peter out. Drying pole beans are turning yellow, but they can stay put until the pods are completely dry and can be shelled. Kale is still doing well. Cool early mornings will be spent pulling out spent tomato plants. Still have more Pole Beans to pick and freeze. Still have enough tomatoes to 'do something with' so aside from giving two boxes of them away to Bear Camp and to my Mom, I'm pretty much done with them other than some straight canning for winter soups and stews. Beau's 'Butter and Sugar' Sweet Corn turned out great this season, so I have a bushel or so of that to blanche and package and freeze.
And that's the latest news and Puppy Update from 'Abandon All Hope' Farm!
Yes, I didn’t think several weeks would result in a total lockup, and IIRC I even used some anti-seize on the joint, but, our well water has a lot of “stuff” in it. That somehow adds up to it tasting good except after heavy rains that apparently get surface water down to the water table quickly, but it’s heck on plumbing and hose connections.
Then again, the chlorine in my Mom’s city water would eat up things like seals in toilets (the flapper valve, for example.) We have relatively little problem with that, but, a metal lever might corrode away after a few years...
In this particular case I now have a really long hose, part of it 3/4” and part of it 5/8”. I really wanted to use the 3/4” hose somewhere else where it’d be just the right length. I may have to cut off the female Aluminum connector - which reminds me Menards may still have the little cutting wheels for Dremel tools on sale. I need to get over there anyway...
Argh - it looks like the innards of my primary 4-way splitter are failing too. The line / shutoff used heaviest (out to the garden area) now won’t open to more than a trickle. I had to swap that line to a different “out” — the one to the incinerator, which incinerator (55 gal steel barrel) is now useless as we just got a burn ban put in place until we get a good soaking.
Funny that I was planning on making a better splitter anyway. My timing is good for once!
- back side of beds & along shop where utilities come in needs to be finished. I cannot drive in anything too deep for fear of hitting a line of some sort.
- front of beds & side - need to add more & straighten up landscape timbers & 'pin' them (spikes or rebar) so they don't move
- ran out of mulch ... need more to thicken up a few places & get the back end/utility area covered. I actually have enough shingles to do the back.
- I have swept the grass clippings off the driveway so that looks much better!
Pollard has to truck in his water. I would not want to have to do that! (I think he has a rain collection system too.) I am on city water here and some of it at least is from deep wells in Eastern Kansas. I wish you luck!
Maybe tapping it all around, without denting it, to rattle corrosion apart, and keep up the pb blaster. Face and hold the female end up so that it can work it’s way down the spiraled threads over the hours/days.
Something like a 5/8 to 3/4 wrench would make a good tapping tool. Give it nice sharp hits. Waterpump pliers aka channel lock or vise grips and in either case, with curved jaws are the best to grab the ends to break loose.
I’ve got a 50 foot plus 75 foot extension cord I had put together and they ended up fused together with too much of a load on them. Now I have a 125 foot extension cord.
Sucks not being able to just run out and grab new replacements of anything at any time, I know. I’m doing better now but we went through some tough times for a couple of years. Still poor though.
On a side note; my new neighbors had a deep well drilled last year but didn’t have time to do any proper plumbing so they ran PEX tubing on the ground. It froze a few times but never split like PVC would.
Good to know. Only gotta buy the crimper once. No elbows needed and it doesn’t have to be in a straight line. I ran PVC to our bathroom 3 times now because it gets cold enough to freeze and split where it has to be run.
Little while later, some things hooked up. 
Tech Tunnel
When I was young ( < 10 y/o) we lived near the Blue River in Kansas. I don’t know how deep our well was, but our water was very good and far better than our neighbors’ water, just a few hundred feet on either side of us. So, I got spoiled early!
Suggestions for those little cutting wheels for the Dremel tools? No problem, Amazon has ‘em too, in a very wide variety of types including (a bit hard to find) small “diamond” surfaced metal & ceramics cutting wheels.
I just know Menards has kits of the abrasive cutting wheels on sale. For example:
and
High heat is obviously out (would damage the hoses.)
Face and hold the female end up so that it can work it’s way down the spiraled threads over the hours/days.
Yes, that's what I'm doing. :-)
I tested the "system" by bypassing the existing splitters and just running 3/4" hose (sections) out to the split near the fish cleaning table. Flow rate was good to that spot, but diminishes some in the 5/8" hose that then goes to the garden (roughly another 100 ft. of hose.) So, I'm strongly thinking 3/4" out to the garden would be good, and that's where I need to salvage the locked up 75' 3/4" hose.
Oh, and yes, PEX will distort but usually doesn’t split.
Very nice pictures! It has really come together.
Those look fantastic.
Thanks - I love them. I can’t wait to make similar beds for my medicinal herb garden - will be later this year.
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