Life among the Tall Pines: Irrigation has begun

After 8 days, on Wednesday July 24, I finally got my irrigation started.

I was a little late starting because I was waiting on the irrigation guy, Myron. Late May I discussed swapping a valve on a pipe I bought last year to a valve that would fit my valve opener. I also planned on buying/making some shorter aluminum pipes to replace some of my heavy steel pipes. Myron had to check to see if he had any valves the size I needed. I never heard from him; then got busy baling my hay and other things. While I had tried in May to get this done - before irrigation season started and Myron got busier - it is now July and Myron is busy. Once we connected and talked we agreed to wait till later as he couldn't get to doing what I wanted now.

So... Wednesday July 17 I started to lay out the mainline. It takes a day to lay out the steel pipe because it is heavy steel pipe. Then usually the next day I lay out the sprinkler pipes. This time it took me almost two days to lay out the sprinkler lines. I had been keeping the cattle in the middle pasture so I could leave the south pasture gate open in order to get the pipes. But when I worked on the sprinkler lines many of the cows walked around the river and into the south pasture, slowing my work down as often I had to open and close a gate. Also, when - usually only two or three at a time - cows' udders filled with milk they would moo and demand for me to open the gate to let them back into the middle pasture and their calves.

I had one sprinkler line laid out and most of the backup line laid out when I relented and opened the gate between the south and middle pastures and let all the cattle into the south pasture. The cows were by the gate occasionally pushing against it, and then the bull came to scratch/push on the wood post the gate attaches to. Rather than have him break the weak post I opened the gate. The cows and bull and calves all rushed through and went to the south side of the south pasture.

After I finished laying out the backup line I went to eat as I was starving by now. What I forgot to do was close the south pasture gate to the hayfield. When I finished eating I came outside to see Toby the bull in the middle of the hayfield. The rest of the cattle were still in the south pasture but Toby, when he came back to go and call out for Mama and Diamond, found the gate open.

It was easier than I expected to herd Toby towards the south pasture. I had closed the gate I had left open on the north side. It didn't matter. Toby wanted to wander towards the south side gate. Naturally the cattle in the south pasture now saw us and most came to the fence and towards the gate also. As I shooed the calves away and opened the gate the south neighbor's horses came up to the fence. That got Toby excited and he began to jump up and down and shake his head. The horses ran off but now Toby was away from the gate I wanted him to go through. A little more time - to let him calm down - and a little coaxing and Toby came through the gate into the south pasture. Fortunately he wasn't in the hayfield long enough to overeat the alfalfa and bloat.

Toby then wandered back to the north side gate but it was closed. I also had the gate to the middle pasture closed. He began to rub against the weak post and in 15 minutes knocked it over and went into the middle pasture so he could be closer to call out to Mama and Diamond.

*sigh* Whatever. I have more irrigation prep to complete. As I had bought one 40 foot aluminum pipe last year I now had two extra 20 foot steel pipe sections. The river bends along the property and the middle pasture goes a little further west than the south pasture. When I irrigate I ended up pivoting the pipes from the last valve to reach all of the middle pasture. Moving the two pipes down there should eliminate or at least reduce the need the pivot the middle pasture sprinkler line.

I thought adding the two pieces of pipe would not take long or much effort. How wrong I was!

First I had to enlarge the exit hole in the shed for the pipe's new position.

Because I was short two pipes when I redid the irrigation mainline years ago I angled the pipes from the irrigation shed to the fence line. Now that I added two pipes I straightened the line from the shed to the fence. The angled line - now straight - went into the middle pasture.

I added the short fence so the cattle wouldn't kick and move the pipe when they walked down to the river.

When I had angled the line I redid the short pipe that exited the pump as that old pipe was backward. That, and another custom made pipe, caused the length to be longer. I removed the 10 foot custom pipe but I was still off a little bit. A tree and its side root was in the way of extending the mainline. If I instead removed a 20 foot section another tree was in the way. So I went back to removing the 10 foot pipe and humped the mainline over the side root.

As you can see below I had to slowly angle the mainline away from the fence.

Steel doesn't bend like aluminum pipes do. I had taken a number of pipes apart to help the move. One gasket tore and I had to walk back home to get another one - a 15 - 20 minute round trip walk. When I put the pipes back together, the pipe that had torn its gasket wouldn't fit back together, even if I used a sledgehammer to help fit the pipes together tight. Apart. Together. Apart. Together. Over and over. The pipe would not fit back together completely so I could re-hook it. After numerous attempts the new gasket tore. Before I walked back home again I took a gasket from another pipe. Now the pipes fit together completely and I didn't even have to use a sledgehammer. Identical gaskets. Go figure.

The other problem was the corner pipe. Because of the angled mainline I had a custom corner pipe made from the old crappy corner pipe. The new corner pipe was at a 110 degree angle. I now needed a 90 degree angle. I could fit the 110 angle pipe into the other pipes. But after I started irrigation and got to full pressure one end of the corner pipe wanted to slip out, even with the metal stakes I had placed in the ground to support the corner pipe. The corner pipe leaked terribly.

I ended up calling Myron, the irrigation guy, and he had a short used 90 degree corner pipe for $25. Or a long 90 degree corner pipe - new - for $80. I tried the short corner pipe. It had a better hook and latch than my old corner pipe so I didn't stake the pipe. I did replace the hook with a shorter hook that I had. All the pipes have 9/16 size bolts and nuts. The hook bolt was 9/16 but the nut was an odd nut. Once again I had to walk back to the house and get another wrench. I brought a 5/8 wrench and a crescent wrench. Even the 5/8 wrench wasn't the size of this odd bolt. Fortunately I had also brought a crescent wrench.

Under full pressure the corner pipe stayed hooked but it tilted. Therefore it leaked. A lot. I tried pushing on the corner pipe. I wiggled the connecting pipes. One connecting pipe was held together with wire as the half shell clamp would not work. And I couldn't fit a collar on as you can see below. The metal band that holds the half shell clamp was in the way on this pipe. Well.. when I wiggled this pipe to try to stop the corner pipe leak the pressure was too much for the wire and it broke in two and the pipes separated and the water rushed out.

That was it for that day. It was getting late. Nothing was going right. It was for the best to take a break.

The next day I used a hacksaw to cut off the metal band. The band was welded to the pipe on each side where the "loop out" is located to hold the half shell clamp. I got one side cut. I decided to cut faster on the other side and quickly broke the hacksaw blade. *sigh* I figured I could use the broken blade to finish the cut in the time it would take me to walk back home to get another blade. Nope, it ended up taking longer to cut the band off.

With the band off I could position the collar and hook. Now the pipes hold together under full pressure.

I redid the corner pipe's hook. The hook's collar is two bolts. I removed the front bolt holding the hook and moved the hook to the back bolt. This made the connection tighter. Because the pipe was a corner pipe one can't adjust the position of the collar as the collar needs to be loose in case the pipe goes left or right. And being so short there was no room to move the collar along the pipe. I also put four metal stakes around the corner pipe. Nothing moved and no more leaks when under full water pressure.

The other major problem I had when I tried to start my irrigation pump was that I couldn't get prime. I pumped and pumped the priming pump and I wasn't filling the intake pipe. Not only wasn't I filling the pipe there was really no water in the pipe. The foot valve wasn't working. I just bought that thing three or four years ago. It should work.

Photos below show the parts of the foot valve.

http://valveproducts.net/foot-valve/4-basic-parts-of-a-foot-valve

The bottom part is the 'flapper' or disc of the foot valve. As you can see it is misshapen. It appears to be made of leather. I take the foot valve out of the water each year so it doesn't get damaged when the river freezes. I think the leather shrunk.

I tested the foot valve and it wouldn't hold water even though the flapper completely covered the opening of the seat (the metal ring) that flapper sits on.

I even put putty around the seat in case it leaked water there. Still leaked.

So with my neighbor Curtis's help we made a new flapper out of some rubber he had. We made the new flapper large enough that it covered the edge of the metal cage, and when bolting the cage to the unit the bolts went through the outside of the flapper to hold it in place.

It still leaked.

I still had my old foot valve. I tested it and it held water and did not leak. I also liked the design better. The flapper was of a solid material and flapped back, and not up, to open and let water in. The flapper did not get in the way of the water flow.

The old foot valve had been in the river (79?) years and the valve has corroded and bonded to the short piece of aluminum pipe screwed into the foot valve. Curtis and I had tried multiple ways to unscrew the pipe from the foot valve: oiling, heating, pounding, sometimes all three at once and we couldn't budge the pipe from the foot valve.

So I bought a plastic piece to screw onto my PVC pipe's screw-on connector. It cost me $3.61 and I gave the millennial or Gen Z female cashier at Home Depot $5.01. The extra penny confused her and she gave it back to me. I told her I didn't want pennies in change but she had already entered $5.00 in her cash register. So I said take the penny and add it to the .39 cent change and give me .40 cents back. She froze. Apparently she couldn't add 1 and 39 to get 40. I was getting frustrated as she wasn't doing anything other than trying to count on her fingers. Another older cashier supervisor came walking over and my cashier then quickly gave me my change. The next day I looked and she had given me a quarter and two dimes. .45 cents. These young kids these days can't add worth a darn.

Curtis has a lathe and the next morning he trimmed the new screw-on plastic piece so it could fit inside the short piece of aluminum pipe that we could not unscrew from the foot valve. We glued it. I drilled and put a couple of screws from the plastic piece into the pipe in case the glue failed. I didn't want the foot valve to slip off and getting washed down the river. Success! (As you can see in the above photo.) I then was able to screw the foot valve on to the PVC pipe below.

Now that I fixed the foot valve I primed the pump with water. I pumped and pumped and pumped. It seemed like it was taking too long. I checked the intake pipe by thumping it and there was water in the pipe. I pumped and pumped and pumped the priming pump some more. I must have pumped for over a half hour. Finally I filled the intake pipe and started the pump. Immediately water sprayed from the priming pump's shutoff valve. The water quit spraying when I closed the valve.

Okay.... I can deal with this later when I shut the pump off. I then ran into my previously described problem with the 90 degree elbow and had to shut the pump off. After I fixed the elbow problem I decided I would continue to delay fixing the shutoff valve leak. However the next time I started the pump, closing the shutoff valve did not stop the leak.

*sigh*

The intake pipe was still full. I unscrewed and took off the priming pump and shutoff valve, used a pan to top off the water in the intake pipe, put a plug in the pipe and started the pump. I ran into another one of my previously described elbow / pipe separation problems.

The next day when I made my final fix to the elbow I also found another shutoff valve. The broken shutoff valve was 1 inch in size. All I had were 1/2 inch shutoff valves. But dad had lots of miscellaneous pipes and connections. I barely cobbled together a reduction from 1 inch size to a 1/2 inch then back to a 1 inch size.

It worked and I was able to use the priming pump to top off the intake pipe and start the pump.

Looking at the broken shutoff valve my guess is that I had left the valve closed over Winter. There must have been water in the valve and when it froze it expanded and split the valve.

Cobbled together pieces to make a 1/2 inch valve work.

So now I am moving pipes twice a day. I start before 8 am and 8 pm. Depending on the pipe configuration it takes me 1 hour and 45 minutes each time to over two hours. The 8 am move is before I normally wake. But I wake up naturally, move the pipes and go back to sleep until I get my 8+ hours of sleep before I wake up naturally again. Not ideal as it messes up my day, but I get the pipes moved.

The first morning I went back to sleep and slept from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm. 4 hours! I woke up exhausted as I had the craziest dream. I dreamt I saw one of my cows run and jump my south fence like it was show jumping horse. As I went to the fence the southern neighbor was my real life northern neighbor Calvin and his wife. The land went uphill and there were a lot of trees. There were lots of fenced pastures and holding pens and small buildings among the trees. They told me all my cattle had escaped from my pasture into their pasture but they had rounded up most of the cattle and sent them back to my pasture. Five or six of my cattle remained missing and I went to look for them among their various pastures.

In one holding pen with a loafing shed I found three of my calves among their animals. I tried to herd just my calves out of the holding pen but one of their animals slipped through the gate with my calf. They I realized the other animals were monkeys. I had a devil of a time getting the monkey back into the holding pen and my calf out. Finally I got the monkey in and my calf out.

Then Calvin had two teenage boys who came to help with my the other two calves. We had to each carry a calf. We walked through various fields with small fences and gates. Then it was a walk downhill to my pasture. I had a choice of wooden stairs or walking on the hill next to the stairs. I took the stairs but with the wiggling calf I fell at the bottom of the stairs. Someone was at the gate to my pasture and opened it and I chased the calf inside.

Then someone said we should take a car and drive around looking for the last of my escaped cows. A group of us in the car drove on a paved winding road with lots of houses on each side of the road. I realized I couldn't see the backyards of the houses and that must be where my missing cows were. When we got to an intersection where two roads came together I got out of the car.

Then I woke up. I was exhausted. I don't need active dreams like this when I'm getting more than the usual amount of exercise by moving the irrigation pipes.