The wet field is kind of muddy. So four lines. Two active. Two can be moved some hours after they are turned off when the ground may not be so muddy. We'll see how that goes.
Anyway... today I laid out two additional lines. Last year I had at most three lines. Once I get past the NE pasture I will have four lines. I am using the pipes I bought from Donna's mother for the fourth line. These pipes are the "Wade Rain" brand. They have a different connection setup. It is a knob and latch style. But I am able to hook one pipe up to my hook style valve opener. I changed the latch for a knob to a hook on the end of one pipe.
Apparently the advantage of this style of Wade Rain is the connectors are separate from the pipe. Or they were. I forgot to take photos. So I looked up online. No double connectors now. A single connector which can be attached to the pipe. Which makes sense as I found the Wade Rain style of separate connectors annoying.
I hadn't used the Wade Rain pipes and connectors before. Some of the connectors' gaskets were dried and hard. I found some connectors with decent gaskets; and I had to replace gaskets in several connectors. Well... another "feature" of Wade Rain connectors are how difficult it is to replace their gaskets. I had to pry the dried ones out using a screwdriver. It took me over a half hour before I figured out (kind of remembered Carl showing me last year) how to put in a new gasket. Later gaskets only took a minute to install.
I had to get a new gasket for one of my old style pipes. Myron had some to sell me. I had to wait till he got off work. He was supposed to call but he forgot. I rode my bicycle over and bought a few gaskets.
Because the field is new, I had to carry the pipes on my shoulders rather than drag them across the ground like I usually do. My shoulders were still a little "raw" from when I had to carry the mainline and steel pipes. I was getting cranky by the time I carried the last of the 26 pipes.
It took me less than two hours to assemble the old style line. It took me 3 hours 45 minutes to assemble the Wade Rain line due to the extra connector and gasket and sprinkler work.
Yes, sprinklers. Older sprinklers can quit. I replaced a few that seemed to have frozen up. Once I released the water into the new lines I discovered three sprinklers were bad. One sprinkler I totally missed seeing that the clapper was broken. Fortunately it was the last sprinkler in the line.
I pried and popped the last pipe off and then I replaced the sprinkler. When I put the pipe back on I discovered this sprinkler was also bad: it wouldn't turn. I took the pipe off and put the second sprinkler on. It also was bad and would not turn. Argh!.
The third sprinkler did work.
Then it looked like all the sprinklers were working. The other two bad ones seemed to have started working. Opps... no, one of the two quit working again. I walked back home and, after sorting though my extra sprinklers and avoiding ones that seemed to be 'sticky', I got two more sprinklers.
Walking back an old guy driving by offered to give me a ride. Thanks, but no thanks I am almost to where I can cross my fence.
Lots of water was coming from the base of the riser. I tightened it and much of the leak slowed and the sprinkler started turning. No need to take off the last pipe, which was great as the rushing water would quickly make a mud pit there. When I switch lines tomorrow, and this line is drained, I can replace the riser.
Of course the sprinkler replacement and pipe removal was a wet affair. I got pretty wet. With only 26 sprinklers running the water pressure is pretty good. Each sprinkler is throwing water more than 40 feet. When working on a bad sprinkler the next sprinkler still can reach me - and did.
So that was my day. I had planned to do this, move part of the previous sprinkler line, move my haybine and test it, work more on a fence and get some bicycle miles ridden.
I started the sprinkler line work around 1 pm and finally finished at 9:45 pm. So much for the other plans for the day. At least once I get all the kinks worked out, moving the lines shouldn't take as long each day.
So you can see why I am currently sleeping 9 hours a day.
No comments:
Post a Comment