Art of Proprietation

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Hard Frost


We've been getting Hard Frosts. A little late, but they have finally come. We're not complaining, it allowed us to finish out the ambitious farmer's market season with a lot more produce. And more time to prepare for winter is always in short supply.


But with the hard frost has come the annual transition of our water system. In the spring, we setup our garden supply and various collection and storage sites. We have a spring that gravity feeds to the house garden and a cistern that eventually supplies the market garden. The Market Garden is uphill, so that involves about 400 feet of pipe, a pump, a battery and solar panel / charger.


We also supply water to the poultry and the goats. The poultry are close enough to the house that we just have a spigot in the yard off the old well. For the Goats, I use an old Studebaker truck rear end trailer to tow two fifty gallon drums of clean water. In the summer I need to refresh the goat water about once a week. In the cooler season, I can go two weeks.


With the hard frost, these things change, though. All the tanks need to be emptied, lines drained. The goat water and poultry spigots are generally frozen when I go up to milk early in the morning. If I wait until the afternoon, they usually have thawed. We'll make do for the goats, adding a blanket over the barrels and valve at night. Soon enough we'll get out the heated base for the poultry. Eventually, we'll end up hauling water out from the kitchen when the outdoor faucet no longer thaws. It's not the end of the world, just the wreck of a barbie Ferrari. In the picture at the top, I was using steam from my coffee water to thaw out the pipe for the goat water. It worked after a fashion, but it took a long while. I have blankets over the tank tonight. If I really get serious, I would go with a valve directly off the tank opening, drape it in plastic and insulate the valve over night. I think I'll move the goats down to the house for the winter before it goes that far. With any luck.

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