This afternoon was noteworthy. Not because we planted or built, but because it is a perfect example of work on a farm.
J and I had spent much of the morning trying to adjust the water valve on the irrigation water. The overflow tank kept "sucking" and "blowing" water which meant that the valve was closed too much. This caused an airlock in the pivot which made the end gun surge.
The process of adjusting the valve goes like this...you climb over the pile of rocks and the barbed wire fence to the water valve. Open the cover on the weir gate so you can see how much water is flowing. Walk to the road and turn the valve handle a half turn. Walk back to the weir gate and see how much water is flowing now. Climb back over the barbed wire fence and the pile of rocks. Walk to the overflow tank and see if the level is rising enough. Continue this process (either forward or reverse) until the overflow tank is overflowing just a smidge but the weir gate is not.
Well, the weir gate kept overflowing. This isn't a big deal, but the water was pooling and then sending streams through the goat pen. If it were the pig pen, it wouldn't have been an issue. The pigs would've thought it was manna from heaven and would wallow happily for hours. But the goats were absolutely appalled that we would allow any form of water to flow through their pen. Quickly, the goats were stranded on the small islands of higher ground...all the time giving us the stink eye.
So J thought we could divert the overflow in the opposite direction. We knew that the main pipe for the irrigation was buried in that general area, but it made sense that it would be under the mound. J was going to trench carefully above that. Or so he thought. About ten seconds into trenching with the big old trencher, I heard J curse. I knew immediately what had happened. Sure enough, he had broken the main line.
I rounded up the kids and some shovels and we began to excavate the pipe. J ran up and turned off the water. M ran down and turned off the pivot. And then we dug. Because this pipe was nearly 8 inches in diameter and we were going to try to lift it with the crane truck, we needed to expose it at least 12 feet in each direction. Fun.
By the time we had that done, J had the crane truck and a piece of pipe ready to go. Of course, the pipe was the wrong size when we got it in place so he had to get another piece. By this time, J's brother came over to help. They fitted the old pipe together with the new one and got it back in the ground. J fired everything back up and it worked. But then the connection blew. So J had to re-dig that section, mix concrete, and fill in around the pipe. By the end, it was 8 o'clock in the evening and he still had another bag of concrete to do in the morning.
On the positive side, we now know where the main irrigation line is. It is not under the mound of dirt, but rather under the pile of rocks in the ditch. Good to know. We'll get the pivot up and running tomorrow morning. We have to. The weather is finally getting warm and we have to water the field.
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