Broken Pipes and a New Frost Free Hydrant

Welcome back!

Dale is still getting better!
She likes to sit in the dry hay in the sunshine during the day.
We saw her riding Clover a few days ago, too.
We're so glad her leg is healing!

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Sometimes things on the farm get broken. Sometimes it's our fault, sometimes an animal breaks something, and sometimes someone else breaks it.

A few weeks ago the plumber broke a pipe and he couldn't repair it, so Bryon had to do it. We had no water in the house or in the barn for a whole day!

It's so hard to be without water for 24 hours when we have animals that need it. We need it for drinking and washing. And we need it for cleaning out the milker.

We were glad we had a lot of water stored at our house. It was enough to last for the day.

The plumber was supposed to fix the frost-free hydrant. That's a special pipe that goes deep in the ground so we can have water in the barn in the middle of winter. If you live someplace cold your parents probably cover the faucet on the outside of the house, or they may turn the water off on the outside of the house so the pipes don't freeze.

Our hydrant was leaking so a few weeks ago we decided it would be a good time to replace it while the weather was still warm.

The plumber broke the pipe about 5 feet under the ground.
That isn't a very big hole in the cement floor to dig down 5 feet!

But Bryon, Tim, and Matt all took turns until they could see where the pipe was broken.



The decided that to fix the pipe they were going to have to dig a hole on the outside of the barn, too.
The post hole digger loosened the soil. We have a lot of rocks and it's hard for the tractor to dig through without the soil being a little looser.

The backhoe has finished digging the dirt out of the hole.

Can you see the pipe at the bottom of the trench?
A trench is a long, deep, rectangular hole in the ground.

Bryon, Matt, and Tim have to put the new pipe and the new faucet together before they can attach it to the pipe in the trench.

Matt has to hold the pipe straight up......

While Tim connects and glues everything down in the trench.

Matt and Tim got to take a break while Bryon went to the hardware store for parts.

After all the pipes are connected and glued, the hole inside the barn is filled with sand.

As long as we were putting in a new faucet we decided it would be better to have it pointing into
the barn instead of along the wall.

All hooked up and ready for water!
Can you see the electrical cord coming out of the hose?
That's the hose that plugs into the wall so the water doesn't freeze inside the hose during the winter.

I wish the plumber could have fixed the pipe without breaking it.

Sometimes we don't get what we wish for.

Thankfully Bryon, Tim, and Matt don't complain when something bad happens. They know that complaining or whining about it doesn't help.

Figuring out how to fix the problem is what works!

They spent about 2 hours on Friday night trying to dig out the broken pipe. They spent 8 hours on Saturday digging the trench and doing fixing the pipes the right way.

Every day on the farm we need 5 gallons of water to clean the milker. Every day the cow and little goats drink between 15 and 20 gallons of water, the bucks and sheep drink about 10 gallons of water, the adult does (girl goats that give milk) drink between 10 and 15 gallons of water, and the chickens drink about 2 gallons of water.

How much water do we need to store on the farm so that our animals have enough for two days?

We store about 10 gallons of water per person in the house just in case we don't have water for 3 days. We have 4 people living at our house. How much water do I have stored in the house for people?

Water is so important!

One day this week count how many times you use water.

I bet you will be surprised!

Have a great week!