Friday, January 5, 2018

Some Days You Get The Worm And Some Days The Worm Gets You







As everyone knows, we are dealing with incredibly harsh weather today and tomorrow!  When I look at the weather for my area, I read that the temperature is 3-degrees and feels like -16-degrees!  Yesterday, our local schools canceled today's classes!

We've done all we can do to keep our animals warm and cozy.  Extra feed, extra bedding, blankets on the horses, giving them good shelter, etc.

This morning I looked out and I couldn't really see how much water was in the horse trough, but it looked like maybe it was a little low and I decided that my horses probably could use more water.  Surprisingly, they drink almost more water now than they do in the summertime!

We have an outside water hydrant spigot that is about 60 yards from the heated horse water trough.  In the wintertime, I put together a number of "Magic Hoses" to reach to water trough at the barn.  I can then put all the "Magic Hoses" in a five-gallon bucket and store them in the basement so that they don't freeze.  

When I was filling the horse water on the day before yesterday, one of the hoses developed a pretty significant hole and I forgot to pick up a new one while we were in town.  Ah!,  I thought, I have a spare "Magic Hose" hanging in the garage!  So I removed the broken hose and replaced it with the new hose.   

I then filled up my water buckets for the pigs and fowl (which I haul to them in a big log sled) and then attached my hoses, turned on the water and started dragging the running water end of the hose down to the barn.  It was then that remembered why I didn't use that hose from the garage.  It's about eight feet too short!  So I trudged back up to my broken hose and dragged it down to the other end to try to see if I could make it limp along enough to fill the horse trough. 

By the way, this was all being done in -16-degree whipping winds...AND when I got to the 100-gallon horse trough I found that it was about 3/4 full but I had started the horse watering process anyway!

Nope, the hose was far too damaged to work.  Water shot out everywhere at the connection.  

The horses had enough water to easily get them through until tomorrow so I trudged back up the hill to turn off the hydrant spigot so that I could let the hoses drain and put them back in their bucket when I go inside.   

I finished all of my animals chores - got everyone fed, watered - made sure they had adequate bedding, etc. - and trudged up the hill with my sled with its empty buckets. 

The hoses hadn't completely drained!  And the first hose was frozen to the spigot!  I thought that maybe if I ran some water through the spigot it would thaw the hose fitting.  It did not because the water that hadn't drained out of the hoses had frozen the spigot and now the water wouldn't turn on!  

I trudged into the garage, got a pair of pliers, and removed the hose.  Then I pulled the frozen hose together as well as I could and jammed it into the five-gallon bucket.  

I hauled the hose bucket and the pliers into the house and filled another bucket with warm water.   I hauled that out to the spigot and poured it over the spigot until it thawed and the water ran freely.  Thankfully the water started because I don't know what I would have done if it didn't! 

It's not always beautiful vegetables and cute and happy animals on the farm...


...Some Days You Get The Worm And Some Days The Worm Gets You!    





1 comment:

  1. Oh man, I mean woman, I feel your watering pain. The last two weeks were such a pain. We have spigots but no heated waterers, so I hauled water one bucket at a time. Not many hills on our property and only 1 horse, two steer, a cow and 4 pigs but still...in subzero weather it was tough. Tomorrow in the 50's and then we'll get mud but oh well. That's homesteading

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