Irrigation pipes and yard work

A few days ago I finished putting away all of the irrigation pipes for the year.  I also unhooked the pump's intake pipe and removed it from the river, opened all the valves, and even unscrewed the priming pump and shutoff valve and shook drops of water from them so none of the valves or pipes freeze this Winter.

In the photo below, the short pipes on the right side are the steel mainline pipes.  The pipes to the left of the steel pipes - the ones without risers and sprinklers - are the aluminum mainline pipes.  The rest of the pipes are some of the pipes I moved twice a day across the hayfield.  Stored in the fruit tree area are the pipes that crossed the north pasture.   You can see why moving irrigation pipes twice a day takes up so much of my time.   I got my electric bill for last month.  Over $500.  On top of $300 the month before.  Irrigating is not cheap.

The hayfield is really growing from all the water (as you can in the background of the photo).  Lots of grass and alfalfa for the cattle later as I do not plan to cut the field a third time.


Today I finished un-cattle proofing the yard as I removed the corral panels and fence wire protecting the house, patio and trees.  This takes some time to do.  I did leave up the fencing protecting the caragana bushes as that is out of the way and also a bunch of work to take down and put up each year.

I also cleaned and swept much of the patio area as I still had last year's leaves under where the fencing is stored.  I hauled off one large roll of field fencing to the south pasture as I plan to attach it to the fence later.  That later may be sooner since I see some of the fence posts have a slight lean to them due to Mama reaching through the fence to try to eat from the hayfield.

And I bicycled 35 miles today.