While waiting for John's and Calvin's hay to dry I laid out my mainline irrigation pipe. If you remember most sections are steel pipe so this is a one day effort after which I rest. Two of the aluminum sections had holes and leaked. I usually put up with it but last year at the end of the irrigation season I has a small lake around one pipe. So I decided to take off my dad's fix/patch and fix the holes.
One pipe (the 'lake' pipe) had a large hole but not a long one. I have no idea how the pipe got the hole. The other pipe looked like my dad had hit it with teeth from a swather. The pipe didn't have a hole but a longish crack with additional indentations in the pipe. Last year I used JB Weld to patch small holes in sprinkler line pipes and that worked well. I patched the two pipes with JB Weld. After one day I even added a little more JB Weld. All looked good.
Yesterday I put the patched pipes into the mainline and laid out a long sprinkler line. Last Fall at auction I had bought a few more sprinkler pipes. These pipes were 30' long instead of the usual 40'. But I included some in the sprinkler line I laid out. I found I had to adjust the hooks and collars. Each collar had two bolts. In each case one of the two bolts wouldn't unscrew. I ended up twisting the bolt in two. So I had to go get newer bolts.
When I reattached the input pipe into the river I found weeds had grown underwater right where my pipe went. I had to spend time to remove the weeds so they didn't clog my intake pipe.
It was getting evening so I was getting tired. I forgot to bring a wrench in case I had to tighten the pump's packing. I tried starting the pump several times but it wouldn't pump water. A long walk home to get a wrench.
After I tightened the pump's packing bolts the pump pumped water.
After I flushed out the lines and put the pipe's end caps in I noticed I didn't quite have the water pressure I expected. The reason: the pipe with the long crack split and water sprayed out. In this short time the water was already making a hole in the ground. I turned off the pump.
The other pipe repair seemed to be holding. I called Myron, from who I bought a 20' section of pipe last year. He had a few 40' sections of pipe. It was 9 pm but he said I could come over and get them so I can get to irrigating. I hooked up my irrigation pipe trailer and discovered the wheels won't turn.
Really??!!! Can nothing go right?!
I canceled getting the pipe and today worked on the trailer. My neighbor Curtis recommended opening the plug in the differential and draining the water and junk oil out. In the photos below you can see one of the two plugs. There is a plug at the bottom. The plug you can see at the back is where you add oil and fill to that level.
I expected the plugs to be rusted solid but I was able to easily remove them. Out drained about two tablespoons of water. No oil. No wonder the differential froze up. I used a blowtorch to heat and dry the differential before adding oil. Lots of steam came out of the holes. The wheels still wouldn't turn so I had to drive back and reverse to rock the trailer and wheels back and forth repeatedly to free them. Finally they turned. I then added lots of oil and was able to go get an irrigation pipe from Myron after he got off work.
I took my leaky pipe along. Myron had a machine that can fuse two pieces of pipe together. He cut out the bad section and fused the pipe together. The pipe is three feet shorter but that is ok. My mainline was a little too long and I had to angle the last line of sprinkler pipe so as not to water part of the road. Reducing the pipe three feet was perfect.
I also bought another piece of pipe. I didn't trust my other JB Weld repair job. Next year I will add-in and test the repaired pipe as I plan to used the newly bought pipe to replace two 20' steel pipes. Much easier to carry one 40' aluminum pipe than one 20' steel pipe. It was worth the $$ to buy the aluminum pipe.
So after 9 pm tonight (July 24) I turned on the irrigation pump. Again I had to tighten the packing to start pumping even though I had shut off the pump with water primed in it. Now everything is working and I am finally irrigating my fields. And all the sprinkler heads worked without me having to adjust or unplug any after sitting over the Winter. Finally something goes right.
The other major annoyance yesterday was that four of the cattle got inside the corral panels around the weed hay. The Bull, Beulah, a heifer and a calf. They had pigged out but now couldn't get out. Several corral panels had their bottom rail bent upwards. So I think the cattle lifted the corral panels up and slid underneath.
The 12 corral panels had the metal t-posts inside against them and some were wired to the panels. None were wired now. Over half of the posts were bent or laying on the ground. None of the barb wire was on the posts. The 12 panels were still attached to one another even though some were bent. The square of the corral panels was pushed north. The southern panels were against the hay bales and this is where the cattle must have gotten in as these were bent panels. No posts on the south side were standing. The north side of the panel square were away from their posts. 12 panels as a unit moved. Amazing.
I could only unhook panels on the north side. I made an opening for the cattle to get out. But it was behind bales and the cattle's view. They wanted out the same way they got in: the south side. I tried to herd them around the bales to the opening but they refused to go. (I tried to herd the cow, heifer and calf. The bull had just laid down as I found them and in an enclosed area didn't want to try to herd him.)
Around and around I went. The cattle realized I wasn't trying to herd the bull so they all crowded around him. *augh!!* I got a stick to reach around the bull to herd the cattle. Finally Beulah saw the opening and exited the corral. Once that happened the others went too, one-by-one, finally the bull.
I pushed the south panels out away from the hay and chased away the cattle lingering outside the panels. The heifer immediately went to the river to drink. Once Beulah's calf drank from Beulah, and the other calf drank from its mother, then went to the river to drink. It was a hot sunny afternoon without a little shade and who knows how long they were in there.
A few hours later when I went to turn on the irrigation pump I heard "rattle, rattle, rattle" from the weed hay. Two-thirds of the herd had pushed the southern panels back against the bales and were reaching to eat what they could.
Seriously cattle! That is weed hay and will make you sick. Stop it!!!
This morning I went and fixed the corral panels. I removed all the barb wire as that was useless. South of the panels the ground was soft and the cattle had stomped the wire deep not the ground. For a while I thought I would have to go get a shovel to dig a section of the wire out, but after a lot of effort I was able to pull the wire out of the ground.
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| Trying to pull barb wire out of the ground. |
Once I squared out the corral panels and moved the southern panels away from the bales I pretty much re-did all of the posts. I straightened the bent posts and this time I pounded all of the posts deeper into the ground than normal. I moved the northern post out to be against the corral panels. I wired all of the posts to panels.
We'll see how long this will last. I am liken my cattle to criminals. Sometimes I marvel at all the work some criminal went through to break the law and get something. The same for these cattle. They really worked to get and eat the weed hay. You know, if it was safe to feed it to the cattle I would feel bad at feeding them this junk weed hay.
I started with 12 bales and now am down to 9 and 1/2 bales. So far they don't seem ill - just fat as houses. I hope they don't abort their new year calves. I'll have to keep an eye out as to whether the bull will breed any in the next month as they all should be already bred.
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| What I had hoped would be the final solution. |
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| The hay as of July 24. |
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