It's a nasty, windy, blowing-dirt kind of day here on the high plains. Derek and I went out to put a generator in place to pump water up the hill to a storage tank. Simple, right? The first thing we did was spend 20 minutes unplugging a tank overflow. The overflow from the side of the tank has washed dirt away from underneath and that means I've gotta get my skid steer out there ASAP to replace the dirt or I'll lose the tank. The skid steer is still leaking oil, so I'll need to watch that, too.
Fine, so we got the overflow unplugged and I fired the generator up. The black pipe that takes water up the hill immediately blew off its flange, spraying water everywhere. It turns out that the black pipe has, after many years of faithful service, shrunk just enough that it'll no longer make contact with the pipe flange. It is 1" too short now. So, I've got put a splice in there, and I'd do this by "simply" screwing a short piece of pipe and a joiner on and putting the flange on that, except that I can't get the stupid flange free from the pipe, not w/out giving myself another hernia anyway.
Meanwhile, the wind's blowing 30 mph and blowing dirt in my face the whole time. I have to heat the black pipe to get it on the flange and there's no way that's gonna happen in this wind, so I"m just going to have to bag it for awhile.
Oh, yeah, and I woke up with a 2 Ibuprofen headache.
That's Monday, so far. But, hey, it could be much worse. At least I can walk and still have the strength to throw pipe wrenches 43.5 yards in frustration. Not that I did, mind you. I'm just sayin'...
Tuesday
Got my well problem fixed and dirt around the tank but it was not w/out drama. First drama was that the skid steer was way low on hydraulic fluid and I was out of the stuff. So, I sent Georgia on an emergency run to town while Derek and I loaded up and went to fix the too-short pipe. Even with a come-along holding one pipe wrench and a 3' long cheater on the other, I couldn't budge the pipe. I ended up cutting it off and moving the whole contraption to the pipe vise mounted on my truck where it still fought me. At one point, I had the joint in the vise and my cheater on it and it slipped. I gave it a good smack with the cheater and got an honest 24 yards of flight out of it. Eventually, though, I won, as I knew I would, and we got the line all fixed up with only a tiny little drip.
Here's the fixed pipe mess
Georgia showed up about then in the Ranger with the oil ($60/5 gallons) but nothing to put it in the skid steer with (.eg "funnel), so I cut an old water bottle in half and made do. It took approximately 12 10 oz bottles to get the oil up on the sight glass and I was sure we'd be burning through the rest of the new 5 gallon pail, but no... amazing things do still happen and the skid didn't even hardly lose any oil at all. It has a "high speed" button that I use a lot when working around the compound and moving from place to place but almost never when I'm actually working dirt- I wonder if that's sticking?
At one point, I had a full bucket of dirt and was going up a pretty steep little hill with the bucket a little too high. The skid steer did a wheelie and sat back on its butt, front wheel off the ground and bucket pointed into the sky. I dropped the bucket, cranked the controls to back up, set 'er back down, and all was well except that I was covered in dirt from the half bucket of dirt that I lost to the sky. I looked up and G had her hands over her eyes. I yelled "Cool wheelie, huh!?" and she gave me a withering look w/out even the slightest thumb up.
The steep little hill
Dirtin' the tank
Dirt around the tank
The view from the mill tower
Another view from the tower
Several hours later, Derek and I took the Ranger up to check on the water. If you don't, there will be a problem and you'll likely end up blowing up an expensive generator, burning up a more expensive pump, and blasting precious water all over the ground. If you do, everything will be fine and you might see a coyote, or eagle, or prairie dog. Well... you _will_ see prairie dogs. Everything was fine and I shot this video as we rode up the hill. I also took a picture of some locoweed up there. Loco can be bad news if the cattle start eating it as they literally get addicted to it and it can kill them. There is nothing much to do about it except pray for rain and green grass.
Locoweed
On the way back home, we swung by another tank to check it and sure 'nuff... problems. We spent 30 minutes trying to unclog the overflow pipe and finally succeeded. Then home!
See the water out there? Trouble
Later that day, I was leaving my shop, had my hands full, wasn't paying attention and missed the step. My foot slid into the 2" gap between my step and the concrete blocks next to it that I use as a "side-step". And, of course, I lost my balance and fell like that. So, right now, my foot is swollen and, unlike Monday, I can't walk. I'm not going to go see if I can throw pipe wrenches. I'll probably hurt something else.
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