Irrigation woes

This morning before I went to move the irrigation pipes a neighbor a few houses to the south came over to tell me that one of my cows was over at his place and bellowing.  A bright red cow.  They had chased her out to Wyatt's field and the cow went to the trees, which is where I imagine she has gotten out of the pasture around the fence at the river.  Must have been Rose as she did this once last year after the deer broke the fence I maintain on Wyatt's property.  When I went out in the pasture all the cattle were in the south pasture - including Rose.  She was laying and chewing her cud.

Donna helped me move the irrigation pipes.  She left before I re-started the pump.  Or I should say... attempted to restart the pump.  The last few days the pump has been hard to restart.  The pump will run but won't pump water.  I retried several times before the pump would start to pump water.  I thought it may be some weeds near the river bottom had gotten sucked across the foot valve grill blocking easy water flow.  Yesterday I cleared the weeds from near the foot valve.

Well, that must not have been the reason.

Because the pump would start and have a pressure of between 20 to 40 pounds depending on my attempt I thought perhaps the pipe had an air leak.  The previous days the restart was successful after I wiggled the intake pipe.  It appears an old connection on the PVC had a slow drip.

I borrowed some PVC cement from Curtis, cleaned the pipe off, and resealed all the connections.  Or tried to.  The one with the leak I couldn't stop long enough to 100% seal that connection.

The foot valve did a great job holding water in the intake pipe.  I was unable to drain the pipe.  I didn't have a union when I assembled the pipe pieces.  I thought I would be able to push through the foot valve's grill the inner flap to release the water.  Nope, that wasn't happening.

I thought now was the time to cut a union into the pipe.  Home Depot sells 3 inch PVC pipes and connections but no unions.  A regular plumbing/pipe store was now closed as it was after 5 pm.

I called Dona for suggestions as she grew up irrigating.  I left a message.  I went over to ask Curtis for suggestions.  Not much more than my union idea.  Since I was out of luck until tomorrow we chatted about a few other things.  I saw his newly poured concrete slab where he plans to house his portable sawmill under a side roof to his building.

When I returned to my ranch I found the sprinklers going.

What??!!!

While I was at Curtis's place Donna rode in on her Mustang.  Not seeing me she thought I was at my irrigation pump.  I wasn't.   She opened both the priming pump valve and the outflow valve and waited for a short while.  When she started the pump it started pumping water.  Apparently there was an air bubble in the intake pipe.  Somehow.

Donna said most people don't shut their pump off when moving their irrigation pipes, often for this reason.  They turn off the valve to the pipes they are moving.  Last year when I shut the valve to one of the two lines the water pressure increased so much that the mainline pipes would come apart.  I do have a third valve and I can open that one to release water pressure while I turn another valve off and move those pipes.  So that is what I will do in the future.

Live and learn.

I will wait until I am done pumping for the season to cut in a union into my pipe.  I guess that is what I get for changing the intake pipe from the old metal pipes to a PVC pipe.

Here is a 47 second video of the pump in action.  I think the video captured the sound as being a little louder than what I hear in person.    https://youtu.be/uBJ2PAsvVpw


While Donna said she wouldn't have done it I ran the one line of pipes through the corral to the NE pasture.  It was extra work to do so as I had to move two feeders and thread the pipes through the corral fences but it was worth it as the NE pasture is the driest part of the pastures.  My wooden feeder needed some work before but now needs even more repair work after I manhandled it with my tractor when trying to move it.

I measured the distance to my hay bales and it was 46 feet.  Far enough away.  Or so I thought.  As you can see in the video, even with 29 sprinklers, the water pressure was 60 lbs and the sprinklers tossed the water over 40 ft.  Then a breeze came up and moved the water a few feet more and it then reached the hay bales.  Hence the redneck fix for protection.

A fix to support the pipe across a short steep dip in the ground.

The grey connector is the old connector that I didn't think of resealing when I put the pipes together.   When the pump pumped water it didn't have a 5 second drip and then I put some PVC cement around the connection.

 

Nothing fancy.  This is how they did it since the 1940s: stick it in the river.

My foot valve.