My earlier efforts were slow as due to our wet Spring the mosquitos are bad. Really bad. The worst I ever experienced. The mosquitos are desperate for blood. The temperature can be in the mid 80s, sunny, and midafternoon and there are mosquitos attacking me when I am in the hayfield or pasture. And when it gets close to sundown I have to quit as lots more mosquitos are out. Mosquito repellant works, but one must cover every spot with repellent as the mosquitos will find the spot with no repellant. If they can't land they swarm around me. I had to be careful breathing so as not to suck in a mosquito. So I quit working outside for the day.
Yesterday late I finished laying the mainline and two sprinkler lines. This morning I got up after 7 am (early for me!) and went out to start the irrigation. First I had to place the input pipe in the river and connect it up.
I had to prime the pump. This was much harder than normal due to the mosquitos in the irrigation shed. I hadn't brought any mosquito repellant with me.
The pump started right up. Adding the new packing material helped. The pump's pressure only reached 50 lbs. Usually it is 60 lbs but this was enough to irrigate. It was time for me to go back to bed.
Hours later when I woke up it was time to set out the third line of sprinklers. This line is so I always have two sprinkler lines going when I move one line. That way I don't have to shut off the irrigation pump.
After I finished the third line I went and checked on the irrigation pump. It looked like the distance the water came out of the sprinklers was a little less. I found the pressure was now down to 38 lbs. Hmmm... I went into the river to check the intake screen. The screen was covered with common waterweed that was growing near the intake.
I had to stop the pump. Then I was able to grab the waterweed off the intake screen. Then I used a rake to try to get rid of the waterweed growing nearby. I had raked and "removed" the waterweed last year. But it grew back. Now reading more about them I discovered they remain active over Winter. When I started the pump in the morning I couldn't see the waterweed in the river.
I restarted my pump. The pressure now went to 60 lbs.
My day was getting away from me. Donna had raked her hay into fewer rows. I had to get some diesel for the tractor then I went down to bale her hay. My baler had no problem baling her hay and it went quick. I made almost two bales. I left the last bale in the baler and brought it home with me and then unloaded it from the baler.
I used the air compressor to clean the loose hay from baler. It was getting later and when I pulled the baler back to the NE pasture I rubbed against the gate. Never did that before. After parking the baler I had to use the tractor to push one of the bolts holding the gate to the post back straight. The wooden post moves a bit and tomorrow I'll see if the post is cracked or broken in the ground or is loose because the ground was compressed by the post moving.
I put the bale fork on the tractor. As I was driving across the field I saw the fork was not mounted correctly on one side. In the photo you can see how the top "hook" sits on the tractor arm. Somehow I was able to put the pin in the bottom to hold the fork in place. I have taken off-and-on the fork for many years and I had never done this before
Fixing this problem turned out to be hard. I could not take the pin out. I had to use a hammer and a crowbar to force and knock the pin out. Then I could reposition the fork correctly.
More time lost. I had to move the irrigation sprinkler lines and I was losing time. I drove to Donna's field and picked up the other hay bale. The drive back was slower because the road had cracks in it, and not completely level, and the tractor would bounce a bit as I drove. I didn't want the bale fork to break with the hay bale on it.
I made it home and got the two bales stacked.
It was a quarter to 9 pm when I finally could go and move the irrigation lines. It was 10:10 pm when I got back to the house after moving the lines. It was getting dark by the time I was about done moving the second line. I had to look to see where the line was I was moving. Once I turned the line back on I had to trust the entire line was working and there was no debris in a sprinkler head.
Another day.
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