Water in, water out
‘Tis the season for water-related posts!
While Steve made two trips to the water station today in his continued pursuit to fill the cistern completely, I did three Water Wagon runs with Big Red to give the baby trees (and some of our miscellaneous landscaping) some much-needed hydration. The big tank that Steve takes to pick up water is over 200 gallons, and the little tank on the back of Big Red holds about 65. So my three fill-up-and-use trips to the faucet basically used up the equivalent of one of Steve’s trips today!
As a reminder, we cut an opening in the top of the tank (it also has a bottom spigot, but we do not use that) and inserted a pump. The pump is connected to a hose and a car battery that is in the front seat, controlled by an on/off switch. The baby trees are so tiny that the power of the pump would be too much for them. So we just get it started with the pump for a second or two, and then turn the pump off and let suction do the rest. On bigger plants and trees, we use the full power of the pump since it is much faster!
Looking through the hole in the top to the pump, its black power cord (connected to the battery in the front seat) and green hose. The black hose is currently filling up the tank.
Front seat configuration. Steve usually plugs the battery into a charger in the shop after each use.
The baby tree area is directly in front of the house in the field on the other side of the driveway. It is pretty hard to see because when we say “baby”, we mean BABY! We have colored flags identifying different types of trees.
We purchase the little saplings from our local Conservation District. This year’s trees are marked with bright green, dull green, and pink flags. The couple of blue flags are from last year. Included in the blue are 8 Shiny Leaf Yellowhorn saplings I purchased on a lark at last year’s Homesteaders Conference. They are the only ones that are not firs. I can’t quite remember what attracted me to those unusual trees, but 4 still survive. Only 1-2 other firs from last year’s experiment lived (most died immediately, we assume from us waiting too long to plant and water them. So doing better this year!)
These miscellaneous shots from today give you a good idea of what we are talking about when we say “baby”. But we are still working hard, giving them water, and keeping our fingers crossed. I saw two this morning that were definitely D-E-A-D, but that means there are several dozen still hanging in there!
Yay, summer!
