The Well Saga of 2020

The Well Saga of 2020

The water well saga, continues here on the homestead

I heard the pump kick on a couple times the other night, we only hear it when we're running something and we weren't,  so I went down cellar and I hear a hissing sound over by the well pump. I assumed we were sucking air as the water levels in the state are bad with this drought, I found there was a hole in the housing where it had rusted out.  (too much sand being sucked up?).  I shut it down for the night and powered it off, we went to Home Depot the next morning and purchased a new one. $300 later I had the new pump and expansion tank.

The newly installed pump

As this was out 4th pump in 20+ years I was determined to make the change out process faster and easier.  Off to Ace hardware to pick up some new pieces, mainly a union and a reducer, the union will allow me to disconnect the pump from the inlet pipe from the  The reducer will allow me to install a Shark Bite connector to the outlet side of the pump from the PEX piping we installed last year in a few seconds too. I am assuming that I'll be able to disconnect the power in about 5 minutes so all told it should be a 20 minute job to completely replace the entire system next time, let's hope there isn't a next time though...

So I primed the new pump and is started drawing water Yay!  Our hopes were dashed though as it was pulling up mud and sand... then stopped working.

Saturday was overcast and humid as hell, we were off to the well to have a look to see why we were getting sand and silt.  Eversource called, our power would be out for 4 hours to make a repair somewhere, great, no water, and no power...

 

The wild roses had completely overtaken the well, I'd brought my Machete assuming the worst and I was right, I went and got a couple snow shovels so we could take al the leaves and debris off the partially collapsed well cover. Rose walked back and got a couple loppers even then it took us an hour or so and numerous ouch, ouch, ouch from the damned thorns to get the wild roses all hacked back and away from the well so we could begin work.

You could see where a couple of the 2"x6" boards that made up the well cover had rotted and fell into the well as there was a small puddle of water in the tarp cover with a frog in it on top.

We slow pulled back the cover revealing more rotted boards that had to be carefully extricated so they too didn't fall into the well.  Rose saw the yellow rope used to keep the foot valve down towards the bottom of the well and noticed the rope was cut, I could see saw the rope against the left side of the well heading down the side of the well and into the water, somehow the rope though severed didn't fall in the water, that would have made the job a lot harder.  I grabbed the end and tied it back to the other end, whew!

The Well

 

Looking down into the well we could see the water level was way down but it appeared there was still 4 feet of water at the bottom, there was a good 12' or so to the top of the water.  

It appears that a board fell on that rope causing it to pull the water line and one way foot valve down to the bottom of the well and into the mud. The foot valve at the end of the water pipe keeps the pipe full of water so we're not pulling water al the way from the well each time we ask for water.  I was able to temporarily relocate the water line and foot valve a foot or so off the bottom where it belongs. 

Tired and sore, we finished up covering the well with some leftover metal roofing panels for the night. Back to the house, still no power, changed out of our dirty, wet, and sweat drenched clothes, no power and no water meant no shower,  we were both exhausted.  Power came back on at 4pm I started up the pellet stove to take the chill off the house and decided to take a quick nap, two hours later it was time to see if I could get the pump to go.  

The priming process is simple really, you need to fill the pump housing and completely fill the water line all the way from the house to the well by pouring water into a priming tee at the pump inlet, luckily we had 6 or so 4 gallon jugs of water ready for when we lose power in the basement.  Priming the line took all 6 of the 4 gallon jugs, several hours pouring water down the water line and 8 or so frustrating tries of turning the pump on only to have the pressure fall back to zero again time after time.  FINALLY it took apparently we finally got enough water into the line and water poured out of the bathroom sink upstairs YAY!

 

The well cover on, we'll come back and trim the excess from around the cover later.

The Birds, sparrows are playing house this morning.

 

A Busy Weekend

 

A Busy Weekend

Been a busy couple of days

Septic tank was pumped out Friday, Zebulon was less than impressed...

 

We picked up the boys Saturday morning.

• Tires on the trailer were flat, Jason & James pumped them back up quick. I took a .22 caliber brass cleaning brush in a drill to the trailer connector to clean off the contacts. Lights lit up!  Trailer was filled this spring but due to Covid-19 our dump stopped taking all construction debris so they sent us home with the trailer full back in March so it sat in the field all summer.
• I got the award for the sketchiest trailer they had seen in a while at the dump! Yay me!
• Two trips to the dump were made today!  Old greenhouse parts, an old propane tank, a dead A/C and 8 or so car/tractor batteries. Paid $15 each for the A/C and the Propane tank... Yikes.
  
• House was inspected for town taxes, guy came and ran thru the house.
• While down by the dump made sense to take a quick trip over to Hayward's Ice Cream in Milford for a hotdog and a Chocolate Frappe.
• Picked up two new trailer tires at Tractor Supply the ones on the trailer were downright scary with cracks all over the sidewalls.
• Cut up some low hanging Poplar branches that threatened to close the driveway every time it snowed.

 

Tuesday 10/13 Amazon Prime Day we got some MUCH NEEDED RAIN!   Probably not enough, I'll go check the pond level later today.

 

Goffstown is having Halloween this year, should be cool, it's on a Friday, and it's a full moon too.  All I got to do is wear my mask right? Instant Costume!

We'll get a load of loam to start filling the holes the dogs dug for us this summer.

 

Stay Safe out there...

 

 

 

Notes from the Covid Bunker!

FROST

A forgotten post... it was stuck in drafts...

September 22nd frost last night 4th night in a row.

Fall chores in full swing, Rose took the Cabana down for the year

Hummingbirds have gone south

Still no rain in sight, the well is holding so far, knock on wood... 

Our well appears to be dry at this point, a local pond on Rt 114 is completely dry, no water at all, all you can see is mud.  Went down to our pond yesterday we still have a small volume of water in it, but with no wet weather in sight we're still concerned.

 Rose and I took a drive up to Hogback Mt. last week, nice view.

October already!

Our water well issues continue, we'll have some water in the morning not so much after that. The Laundromat is our friend now.  Times have changed, I remember $1.25 per load it's now $4.00 per load in the commercial machines, these things do a load in 23 minutes flat though so because we can still dry all of our clothes at home we're in and out in 30 minutes.

Strikes me funny what impresses me as I get older, how fast a clothes washer is, or how efficient the new 1.4 gallon toilet upstairs is...

Jarrod's Birthday today as I write this on Oct. 1st, he's 38 years old! 

Our pond is still really low (therefore our dug well). Our pond is normally 80' across, now is probably 20' across.  The water level must be down 12-16 feet. Our well is stone lined 9 feet in diameter and 19 feet deep, that's 9,042 gallons, normally a lot of water.

This is for Lisa, the stuff works great on Poison Ivy!

We've had four frosts since mid September time to pick the Kale still in the Garden.

Friday evening October 2nd went food shopping, Market Basket was packed, not sure if this is the 2nd panic wave the news is talking about, the checker said it had been like this since 9 AM that morning.  the shelf stockers were busy but most stuff seemed in good supply. 

I think our fall color is about done, we drove a bit north to Concord Saturday the 3rd and found mostly browns and very muted colors there. 

We'll start raking leaves today, oh, Hell No, no raking of leaves we'll be using the bagger on the mower to vacuum them all up and put them in the garden. Two hours later the yard is all Vacuumed up!  We'll have to do it again in two weeks as the Maples haven't lost all their leaves yet.

Zeb likes the leaves more than Hanna does

 

Rose is cutting back and pulling the weeds out of the various flower beds around the house and found this little toad had dug himself in for the fall.

We have a little friend on the back porch.  Sparrow that sits up under the back porch roof, he's there every night, and every morning when I let the dogs out before morning light.

  LOL

 

 

So, I've been trying to get the blog post alerts working and I think I got it. BUT, You have to follow by email!  It's on the upper right side of my Blog screen.  

LOOKS LIKE THIS!

Put in your email address, push submit, that'll subscribe you!

That's really all...

September 16th

September Ramblings

 

Went to the shooting range last weekend, found out the scope on my 10/22 was bad, Jarrod replaced it with one off his rifle, and it's driving tacks now.

It's supposed to rain on Thursday we need the rain real bad, it's literally a dust bowl around here, I've never seen it this dry,  it rained a whole tenth of an inch, this month so far.  We're right on the border of an extreme drought here in New Boston.

 

We picked the last of the winter squashes yesterday, we found a Buttercup and another Butternut we'll have to cook up.  We picked the last two handfuls of blackberries yesterday too,  I can already smell the blackberry cobbler.

Rose is squashed out... she put up nearly 100 bags of summer and winter Squash this year, that's on top of all the other beans, broccoli, peppers, etc.  We have Swiss Chard and Kale remaining in the garden, otherwise it's done for the year, so garden cleanup commenced today we'll have a couple more trailer loads of refuse to pull out, spent tomato plants, squash vines, etc. We took some summer and winter Squash over to Jarrod's house on Saturday, we simply don't have any more room in our freezers.

This plant we found out is Virginia creeper, it's growing all over the garden fences.  Rose gets poison Ivy type rashes from the plant, I don't think it does anything to me but not looking to find out either.

We released Robin the Robin last weekend over in Hillsborough, the climate is much wetter there, nothing like the dust bowl we have going on here at all. (Funny it's only 45 minutes away) The ground in Hillsborough is actually damp. 

I took apart the Pellet stove and got it cleaned for the fall/winter season.  I was sitting here Sunday morning it's cool outside so I started the pellet stove up to take the chill off. Feels good to have the heat without starting up the furnace.  It was 44 degrees this morning in New Boston on 9/16.

The Canadian Geese are back in the fields locally, seems too early for them to be here.

Got the Tucson back from the shop, needed front and rear brakes, almost $800 later...

We re-installed the new front porch railings, came out pretty good I think.

This guy seemed to like the new porch railings

Finally able to make it down to the pond, quite overgrown, pond is VERY low.  Water Well concerns continue