Seed starting is under way in our kitchen. In an effort to spare some counter space I got out my trusty folding craft table and have it strategically placed under the skylights. I had quite good luck starting seeds under the skylights instead of supplemental lights last year so I’m trying it again, although I’m starting earlier this year. We’ll see how it goes. I’m using a warming mat on and off since we heat with the wood stove meaning the house temperatures aren’t particularly consistent. I’m using the GrowVeg.com planting time lines which has been really handy. I have both the backyard garden and the raised beds all laid out. It definitely appeals to the planner in me.
Right now I have some greens, leeks, and onions starting. The greens, arugula and mustard, are up and the leeks/onions are just starting to emerge. Next up I need to start: eggplant, cabbage, lettuces, and more greens. I need to dig out more seed starting trays though. They are all still buried in the greenhouse and garage.
Our next flock of chickens is due some time this week. We moved “Pat” the rooster up behind the goat barn with the rest of “flock #2″, otherwise known as the pink flock now, so we could clean and sanitize the brooder box. After repeatedly looking for appropriate leg bands for the chickens I gave up and went the zip tie route. It’s cheaper and accessible. As I understand it the challenge is that they can tighten further and cause damage so we’ll keep an eye on them. So “flock #2″ was given the hot pink zip ties. I plan to give our spring break laying flock the yellow zip ties.
“Pat” got his own special blue marker so we can keep an eye on his integration. He really didn’t know what to make of the situation having spent his entire 3 months of life in the brooder box. First he challenged every hen that approached him (and they came right back at him) which resulted in a small cut above his right eye and several mouth’s full of feathers. He seemed to settle down a little when he realized they weren’t out to get him in the first place. We took care of some other chores when an unexpected downpour occurred. We ran up the hill, because we’d left their feeder out of the shelter, to find “Pat” standing around indignantly in the rain. Bengt ushered him in to the roosting range house in the hopes that he’d pick up on the routine the hens had long since figured out.
The crazy downpour definitely left everyone out of sorts. Bengt was shoveling the brooder box contents in to the compost pile and I had come inside and taken off my filthy socks. When I heard the rain start, it was an instant WOOSH and I went running around the house all out of sorts trying to find clean, dry socks and an appropriate coat so I could run outside to help. Later that night, Bengt went to close the chicken coop by the house for the night and only found 10 chickens (12 live in that house). I had trouble believing a predator had made off with TWO hens, particularly when we were around doing chores all day. He made a quick round around the house and discovered two hens snuggled up against our front door (on the porch). It took some orchestration between the two of us to convince (or carry in one’s case) the two nervous, nearly blind hens to walk to the back of the house to the coop in the dark and rain. They probably would have been okay on the front porch, but I can’t imagine they’d have liked it any and I certainly don’t want to encourage it.
So the brooder box is all clean and we have a new bale of shavings standing by. Sometime this week we will get the 5:30am wake up call from the post office informing us our chickens are ready to be picked up. These will be the snowy white meat birds, and are due to be grown enough to move out of the brooder box by 4 weeks, just in time for “flock #3″ or the “yellow flock” to arrive, the last of our laying birds for this year. I’m really not looking forward to two more rounds of “failure to thrive” but what can you do really.
Wednesday afternoon, I found myself kneeling in a 3×5 foot shed with a 1500 watt space heater between my legs, a small LED flashlight in my teeth, and my back up against a propane powered hot water heater. The majority of the words coming from my mouth were expletives. Occasionally dashing out of the shed around to the front of our house and shouting, “TURN ON THE BATHTUB!” and running back to the shed. This continued for close to two hours. When I returned to the house my knees and back hurt.
You might ordinarily assume that my behavior was a result of mental illness, some bizarre prayer ritual, or a really quirky exercise routine. In this instance, though, I was attempting to return water service to our house.
The extraordinarily low temperatures we’ve had over the past few days (an archive of this month’s data from the weather station on our roof are available here: http://www.miscfarm.com/weather/NOAA/NOAA-2008-12.txt — note the lows on the 15th and 16th) froze a few of our pipes, including those surrounding the well pump pressure switch.
The pressure switch regulates the operation of our submersible well pump, based on the pressure that’s built up in two 75G tanks and the house pipes. By design, when the pressure drops below 35/40 PSI, the ‘cut in’ function of the switch is triggered and the pump runs until the pressure switch reaches the ‘cut out’ pressure (~60 PSI, in our case). It’s how our “water pressure” (at the faucet) is maintained.
Early Wednesday morning, Kat’s shower died halfway through her morning routine… it just stopped. We came to the conclusion that the water mains from the pump had frozen. We relocated a small space heater from the greenhouse to the garage, aiming it at the exposed galvanized pipe, and took off for work. We returned at 4 in the afternoon (around sunset) and my adventure ensued. After presumably thawing the pipes with a space heater, we still faced no water pressure in the house. I checked the well house and discovered some very chilly pipes, including drain valve that was frozen solid. Moved the space heater, again, this time to the well house… after the drain valve had visibly thawed, I flipped an L-shaped bail to reset the pressure switch. The encouraging snap of an electric arc and the needle moved from the ambient tank pressure (30 PSI) straight up to 70 PSI, only to drop back to 30, a second later. Another attempt with similar results.
After re-reading some information I’d found a few months back and a call to my father, who lived off-grid for 12 years and just knows this stuff, I was determined to figure it out. That’s where this post began… on my knees, with a small wrench, trying to adjust the ‘cut in’ pressure downward enough to get the pump running without hand-holding. I gave up. I spent some time with my new friend this morning, then, around noon, caved and called a service company. Late afternoon, I called to see if they were going to be able to make it. “Sure, he’s in your area and should be there in a couple hours.” Around 7:30, I talked to the service guy and he made it pretty clear that he wasn’t going to attempt to drive out into the sticks with the roads unplowed.
Thursday, we awoke to 7 inches of snow. Determined to gain running water, again, I decided to spend some more quality time with my friend, the pressure switch. There’s no way these ‘snow wimp’ service guys were going to drive out here. I was convinced that something had become lodged under the diaphragm/pressure plate and it just needed to be cleaned.
After all, I’m a smart guy and somewhat mechanically inclined, right? This is what I wanted, right? Yeah, we’re working to become self sufficient and I just need to persevere, right?
I flipped the breaker to kill the pump circuit and made my way out to the well house. I took a picture of the switch without the cover, so I’d remember the wiring. 20 minutes later, I’d pulled the wiring off the switch, drained the last couple gallons out of the well tanks, and unscrewed the switch. I brought it inside, removed the screws from the bottom, pried the switch open, and pulled out the rubber diaphragm. No gunk. Huh… there goes that theory. I reassembled it, put it back in place, reconnected it to the house wiring, flipped the circuit back on, and went back out there.
After an hour of futzing with the two adjustment screws, I had it cycling pretty reliably. The radical change in pressure had shaken loose some rust and corrosion, but hell, it’s water, right?
Punchline to the story? Sometime between the pipes freezing on Wednesday morning and this Thursday afternoon, we ran out of propane. The company that we’d contacted to refill the tank every 2 months, somehow lost our account. So, after all this hoopla, I still don’t get a hot shower.
A few things I’ve learned from this:
- The pressure switch is a really simple and elegant electo-mechanical device.
- Having the propane hot water heater and well tanks in the same shed is a poor idea. Too little ventilation and the thermocouple on the water heater will burn out. Too much and the pipes/tank/switch will freeze in the winter.
- We really could survive here with very little from the outside (no, we’re not survivalists). While it’d degrade our quality of life some, we could boil water from the creek on the wood stove.
- 3 conductor 10 gauge romex is a pain in the butt, in enclosed spaces.
- Sometimes, even paying someone to do it doesn’t mean it’s going to get done. Just do it yourself, city boy.
A couple helpful links:
http://pumpsandtanks.com/faq_page.htm
http://www.inspect-ny.com/water/Water_Pump_Control_Repair.htm
RSS Feed
