ranunculus

The new overflow tank is now hooked up to two of three things. The big tanks now overflow into it, and it can now supply the manifold, or just the horse pastures.  It is not hooked up to the overflow water trough yet.  I have to dig the end of the pipe that feeds the trough out of the mud where the cows stomped it. 
I found a leak in the horse pasture line, but not until 7 pm when I was ready to be done for the day.  Tomorrow it will get dug out a bit more and I'll mend it. 
There is a lot of water up the canyon at the springs, most of which isn't making it down to the tanks. I explored some possible reasons today.   Tomorrow Glen and I will try bypassing one possible kink and replacing a section that is buried both in sand and rock and vegetation. The pipe in that stream bed was installed in about 1965 and it is amazing that it is still working at all. 
Edit: Oh, and I got the fence all tuned up after I came back from town and found a cow at the tanks.  There is a proper gate and there is electric wire with all the tape sections.  When finished it metered at an 8 which should discourage any more nosy cows from pushing through it. 

The water project drags on. It is only around a thousand feet from the tanks to the house, but it is up a very, very steep hill.  I've been driving the Gator up it filled with supplies. This morning  I got the fence in a little better shape, added a couple of posts, including one for a gate opening. Parts are on their way for the gate. 
The inflow water (the water coming down the hill from the springs) is still only going to one tank.  The pipe needs a T and two valves so I can fill one tank while the other tank is drained and cleaned. This involves installing  "tank adapters" (bulkhead fittings) where the pipes go into the tank. For decades the inflow pipe has just been stuck through a hole. It works, most of the time.  The challenge is to get the inside part of the fitting into the tank and over to its hole.  Here is a picture of the top of one of the tanks. In the background you can see the round lid for the access hole on the right and the current inflow pipe on the left.  On the other tank the inflow hole and the tank access hole are quite a lot further apart. 

Step 1. Drill out the inflow hole. Step 2. Push the rope through the new hole and drop several feet of it on the water, where it floats. After a couple of minutes of fishing with a rake handle and a grabber I got it  up through the access hole. The rope was secured.  Then the trouble started.  I tried to unscrew the two parts of the adapter. No way was that thing coming apart.  I ended up taking it down the hill to the shop vise and yanking on it with my biggest pipe wrench to get it open. Once both adapters were unscrewed,  I went back up to the tanks, climbed back up the ladder and threaded half the fitting carefully onto the rope. A large knot made sure it would travel with the rope while it was pulled through the tank  and up to the predrilled hole.  Once the fitting was through the hole I removed the rope and doped the threads up with a lot of silicone grease. To my amazement the nut screwed right on and snugged up against the tank.  Whew!!  The original hole for the inflow is the next target.  I need to find a scrap of plywood, screw it over the current hole, which is big enough for the pipe, but too small for the tank adapter fitting. Then I can use the hole saw to drill a larger hole one.*
At that point it became clear that I had not gotten the correct sized fittings to screw into the tank adapters, so I gave up for the day.  In town I got three sizes of fittings to fit various sized tank adapters.   

 * The hole saw I have has a drill bit in the center that keeps the saw from moving, without it it is virtually impossible to enlarge an existing hole;  the saw just skates around wildly. 

Went down to Martinez to judge. Marie didn't need me on Sat, so Donald and I went to John Muir's House.  It was a fun and interesting visit.  As we have done several times now we camped at the arena, which is right next to the train tracks. Really busy train tracks.  The regular Amtrack and freight trains are just kind of background noise, but sometime along about 2 am they started shunting cars around.  There is an oil terminal there and I think they were filling tankers and lining them up into one of those long, long trains. Every few minutes there would be a really loud bang.  Chena cuddled up to me, shaking slightly; she on the outside of the tent, me on the inside. So not a lot of sleep. 
The judging went well but the drive home, was awful. Miles of stop and go traffic.  Just as I was dropping down into Ukiah Valley Carrie called to say there was no water. I asked her to check the tanks.  I actually got to the tanks first, finding most of the herd of cows gathered around; broken pipes and a morass of churned, soupy mud.  Clearly the cows were out of water in the pasture and were making the most of whatever water they could find.  I called Cody, and we made a plan.  About that time Carrie, Rosemary and Marika showed up.  Together we rounded up the cows and pushed them down the hill. They were really hard to move and were convinced that the gate we were pointing them toward was closed.  Eventually we got them through it and into a pasture which should have enough water to get them through the night. 
Two of the three water tanks were completely drained. These are the two main tanks, the metal tank is behind the left hand one. 

Someone had turned off a couple of the valves, so one tank still had about 800 gallons in it. That is down from about 4,000 gallons. I have no idea who shut the valves off, I sure wish they had called me!   Cody and I made a plan, made a list of parts and tomorrow we will work on re-plumbing the whole mess.  During this repair I will take the old metal tank out of service and install a new 1,000 gallon tank.  There will be shutoff valves so I can fill  each tank separately.  Other valves will isolate each tank so they can be  cleaned without loosing our whole water supply.   A third valve on each tank will allow me to drain out that specific tank and get rid of accumulated mud and rocks.  
Needless to say I'm really tired!

I picked my first tomato today.  It is a Cherokee Purple that set very early. About half the tomato is nice and ripe, the other half tried to grow much later and is green as anything. Very confused tomato. It cracked, as Cherokee Purple tomatoes do with any uneven watering so it had to be picked right away.  In a few days I'll be canning pickles again. The cucumbers are ramping up production.  I had a really delicious Carasello Round yesterday. 
Got the valve box all but done. The valves and pipes are all installed and the system doesn't leak!  At least it didn't just after I turned on the water. One valve spat out a splatter of water before turning off as it should.  I rebuilt all those valves after they got a lot of dirt and tiny bits of rock in them, so it is good to know they will shut off.  Next up is to mix up a bit more mortar to seal up all the holes where pipes go through.  Then connect up pipe going out to drip lines.  Several of the drip lines are already there so it is just getting the distribution pipe from the valves to the drip lines. 
It became very clear that I needed more boxes like the one I used for this project.  They are on their way.  While shopping I came across this little valve distribution box which looks ideal for the garden.  It can be hooked up to either a pipe or a hose. www.sprinklerwarehouse.com/antelco-0-25-8-gpm-drip-valve-box-3-4-in-mpt-ezyvalve4 I also go more control wire, I'm going to end up with several valve controllers before I'm done. 

A couple of days ago this was the view of the water project: ( Read more... )

I went to Napa this weekend to judge and had a good time.  Chena had a much better time. Donald and I were camping with my friend Christy. Christy has a new puppy, a 4 month old Anatolian Shepherd / Lab / Mastiff named Hope.   At my April event she was half Chena's size. Now she is a lanky, awkward ball of white fluff and is only a few pounds lighter than Chena.   Hope and Chena had a wonderful time playing together.  
This morning Hope started chewing on a tattered remnant of a chew stick.  She abandoned it, Chena picked it up.  Hope wanted it back. Christy, who was monitoring the situation, got Hope a new chew.  Hope took it politely but thought it was much more fun to try to get the old stick back... Chena groweled halfheartedly at her a couple of times and then ignored the puppy who sat down on Chena's butt.  A few minutes later this was the view:( Pics )

The solar project is plodding along. We have the inside unit installed, with the refrigerant lines through the wall and outside.  Figured out the rack mounts, mostly. The next big thing will be to secure the racks so they can't be blown away. Solar panels are just big sails in the wind! The pad for the outside unit has been re-constructed to be a bit closer to the lines coming out of the house.  I have identified breakers to provide "shore power" but new electrical will be the last thing we do. 
Weedwhacked the last of the yard (in a super steep area where the regular mower can't go), plus two more short fence lines. The fences are both for Firefly's benefit.  One of those two fences will solve a longstanding problem with power distribution . Can't imagine why I didn't think of it long ago.  Basically electric fence tape is fabulous stuff, good visibility and pretty darn tough. However the wires in it are teeny, tiny and they eventually break, rust out or burn up.  Yes they do burn if the wire gets stretched.  In almost all my fences there is both wire and tape. The tape is only for visibility, the wire does the real work.  Around the house I've thrown up tape fences "temporarily".  They have now been "temporary" for some years. Many of them are starting to fail, by which I mean that they have stopped actually conducting electricity all the way to the end of the fence.  Today's solution will build a slightly more permanent fence -with- wire and tape that should help with this problem.

My recent reading has either been complete fluff, or about soil management. Books with "No Till Farming", "Soil Biology" and "Bio Char" in the titles.  Reading about the advances in our understanding of soil biology  has been fascinating and useful.  All this reading, plus watching what is going on in my own garden, is continuing to alter the way I garden.  That plus the very warm spring we have had here means that I have tomatoes that have flung themselves up their trellises. Many are well over 4 feet tall with big thick stems, and have their first crop of tomatoes growing rapidly.  Some have struggled to set fruit, possibly because we are still getting swings of temperature that are 40 or more degrees F. between day and night.  Today it was 95F during the day, but the forecast low is 55. 
Chores for tomorrow are to finish unloading the fourth pickup load of wood compost, and start digging a ditch for a new faucet.  While I'm putting in a faucet I want to install a underground box for valves. It is long past time to set up timers on my beds. I've got all the stuff to do it!
My solar stuff was supposed to be here Friday, didn't come, was supposed to be here today, but no word.  The tracking on it just says "In Transit", which isn't very helpful.  

It is all about the garden.  More stuff getting planted, more wood compost going on.  Slowly working through my inventory of plants in small containers that need a home.  The last beds that needed to be cleared of winter plants and made ready for summer are clear and most are planted. I'm down to the two beds that I saved space in for okra.  I think it is finally warm enough to start okra plants and have them happy to grow. 
One or two tomatoes has reached 4 feet in height. There are lots of flowers but so far not a lot of fruit setting.  Beginning to get the first summer squash. 
Next Morning: Okra seeds are soaking,

they will go into seed starting mix later today.  Of course today is a very cool, windy day, not at all good okra germination weather.  Good thing I'm starting them indoors on the heat mat!

I planted the lemon yesterday afternoon.  In planting it I realized that I had been under watering. Lemons don't like a lot of water, but they need some! In an attempt to not over water I apparently vastly under watered the pot.  It was bone dry except for one little spot at the top.  Also substantially root bound.  Already this morning it has perked up, undoubtedly from all the water it got at planting. 
In a few minutes I'm off to hook up the mower to the tractor and mow the side of the road down at the Red Barn.  I'll also mow the lower edge of Slides Pasture, as the roadbank is too steep for me to mow with the tractor.  Hopefully I'm hitting the exact right timing when the grass is dry enough not to regrow, and wet enough to keep fire danger down.  I'll take my backpack sprayer with water in it as a safety measure. 
The horses at the Red Barn are eating down the pastures next to the road also as a fire safety measure.  It is so dry already now in mid-May, that if a fire started mid-day it would burn readily.