Just Your Typical Day on the Ranch ~1 (Part One)

Because many funny things happen around here (things, that is, that I consider funny), I thought I would do a little 'series', per se, and jot down the events for you, my readers.  If this should prove to be boring, please let me know and I won't do them 'no more'. ;-)

For this first post, I'm going to share the most recent funny Ranch happening.

We raise cattle. That means we need water. We have 60 cows of our own, and 40 of a relatives on the ranch.  That means we need LOTS of water.  Cows can drink a LOT of water, let me tell ya.  The network of water pipes going from tank to tank is probably rather confusing. Let me suffice it to say that several tanks can be connected to one pipeline/well line.

Sometimes we have to go and "turn off" one pipe so that water can go to the other tanks.  We usually have to do this when we have bad pipes that are leaking, but we can't fix for various reasons.

Josh needed to turn on a pipeline so that water could get to some tanks.  Well, the problem with turning this pipe on was that it leaked horribly.  So, we left it on for a few days so those certain tanks could fill up.  However, the other ones, which we had turned the water off from, were going dry.

(IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ THE NEXT PART OF "RANCHING 101", THEN SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH)

We needed to turn off the water, and fast... however, this turned out to be a big problem.  Water pipes are 3-4 feet under ground.  So, in order to enable us to turn them on and off, we use 'keys'- small PVC pipes with notches cut on the end.  Sitting on top of the water pipe will be a handle that you turn to shut the water off (or turn it on).  To keep this from being covered in dirt, we position another PVC pipe over the handle, sticking straight up in the air.  This sticks up from the ground about 1-2 feet.  The pipe lets us put the key into it and turn the handle for the water pipe.

The notches on the key sit down into the handle. You can turn it, and voila. Water on or off.

(FOR THOSE WHO WANTED TO SKIP THAT BORING PART, HERE'S WHERE YOU START READING AGAIN.)

In this case, however, the key wouldn't work. For some odd reason, we couldn't get the handle to turn so we could shut the water off.

One day, I was telling dad about my big plan to fix our very muddy road.  He thought his was hilarious, as he figured we'd never be able to get it done (my plan was to do it by hand, and our road is VERY LONG).  So, I promptly told him that I wanted to do something.  I needed to get out and get some work done or I'd go positively crazy.

(Here's where he sprang it on me!) "Well, if you want to do some labor, you can go out and fix that pipe that's leaking."  My Dad works a full time job, so his only free time is on weekends, and then it seems like something else always pops up that prevents him from doing the things on his 'to do list'.

"Ok, great! Give me the details on what we need to do." ('We' meaning Josh and I)

(Dad) "Well, you need to dig down to that pipeline where the handle is so we can turn the water off.  For some reason, the key won't turn it.  However, the water has been leaking all over the place, so you'll need to build up a little berm around the place you are going to dig so you can drain the water.  Do that tomorrow (Monday) and on Tuesday, you can get up and dig it out."

"No problemo, Dad!"

Just so I keep these posts short and not-to-boring, I'm going to do this in 2 parts.  Now that you've gotten the basic, boring part past ye, I'll post the story-story tomorrow! :-)