April 27, 2009 ~ Water Challenges

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What do you think? Do we need a new hose?





So we bought hose. We have one spigot on this entire 6 acres. Until we got this house put on here, which came with a built in spigot on the top side, that was it. But for all our work, we have only one faucet to use. That a whole lot of hose.

Our system is relatively simple. You buy attachments for your faucet that divide it into 2 to 4 spigots, and you run miles of hose off of them. As many as you can afford to take out of your retirement fund. I believe our record for any one section was 300 feet of hose. That was when we were watering the horses further back into the property. It might have been 400 feet though.

Problem is that much hose is either sitting out in the sun, rotting slowly; or it is coiled up in a figure eight pattern in various places on the ground which are perfect for tripping you and have to be lugged around with each lawn mowing caper; or my personal favorite, it is tangled up in an impossible, slug-covered mess inside a plastic hose reel bin that is actually broken and you haven't been able to remove the hose and use it for close to 6 months.

Well, we nurtured the one above for probably about 6 years. Those years included probable unclaimed mower massacres by perpetrators who shall remain nameless, and massive amounts of stimulus for plastic hose repair companies. I believe there are several CEOs in the Bahamas right now writing thank you notes to our local home improvement store for their loyal customer.

And so, we got another hose. A Swan, lifetime warranty 100 footer!





And began uncoiling it down to the horse trough. Sadly, it did not reach. Michael expertly snagged enough good hose off that old one to reach the trough and barely make the herb garden. If you hang on, pull real hard and water at the same time, you can reach everything but the strawberries. LOL (We will be harvesting the hose repair pieces from the green, semi-coiled cadaver near the tool shed this coming week.)





We also got another Y so we could run a hose off to the garden and compost pile. Fortunately, my dad bought us another hose for my birthday to take us at least to the garden. But we still need more to get to the compost pile, and we need a little more to get to the herb and flower beds that are above the vineyard and thornless blackberries.





See? Now no one said this type of thing is not a challenge. LOL

And here are our PVC pipe umbrella holders in action.



5 dollar umbrellas from Big Lots 3 years ago, and 2 dollars worth of PVC pipe make for a simple little getaway. More big news... I received cash for my birthday and will be able to replace the liner. We are going to get to swim on hot afternoons after work again this year!

It's so peaceful to let the water float your aching tiredness away.

Faith

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