Gravity Fed Water | Restored

Get in. You want to divide and conquer? You get the turkeys, I'll get to harvest the tomatoes. We'll meet back up to climb the mountain. Perfect size harvest bin by luck for 7 quarts, uh, tomato canning. 15 and a quarter by 13 and three-quarters by 10 and a half. Hot dog, the electrician's here! Last day. Painters are supposed to come today to finish on our homestead dream house. Then the floor guy does one more finish and a little bit of cabinetry work, but we can move in before the cabinetry work comes. Look at this climbing pumpkin. It's gonna make it. It's gonna make it. It's like 6 inches every day, doesn't it? It's one of those days where I have two things seemingly of of equal importance that need to be done at the same time. Do 2 rounds of canning tomatoes today means we need to start early. Beautiful one is in there ministering to Henry, so I'm gonna see if I can't get— get some ideas to start here in the back, which is probably neglected. We probably tend to start in the front. The other thing I need to be doing is getting water off the mountain to the cows. It's their source of water today.

Pretty important. Here we go.

I was just about to start heading up the mountain. Lulu came back from feeding Blaze. Boy, she's a trooper. She wants me to cue up the Olympics, the horse jumping. All right.

Oh, oh my goodness, what an effort. He added a stride and his— oh, this horse tries like, oh my—

oh no, this— enjoy. Tyler guys, here pattern Rebecca chose, it's going to go all the way up the wall in the master bathroom. Probably be done today. I just got confirmation from the electricians, they're supposed to be done today. We can get that inspection tomorrow. Uh, painters are supposed to start tomorrow.

Do is make me a box. Okay, make me boxes. So what he's doing is remaking these doors, okay, to come down to this.

Cool.

Since we don't see that obvious gap, that's a mistake. But I'm gonna say, can you put me in boxes so that I can put like casserole dishes and stuff in there?

Oh, that's a good idea. Set the camera for a shot of climbing this epic hill. Um, this could be really quick or really long. Either way, these— it's got to happen today. Cows have to have water. Basically, we had— we have a bit of a double track up there. Hill. A normal farmer might walk a mile doing chores in the morning. A YouTube farmer walks 2 miles, set up the camera, go back and get it. Look at that, pretty gnarly. Parking over there and it's a hike from here. Support it. Come on, please. Our plan is to one day have a, have a side-by-side trail that comes gradually up the mountain and we'll come out about here somewhere. We'll connect to that road and kind of zigs up the mountain. First thing we're going to do is go to the top of this mountain to the tank because the water is coming out slowly at the bottom. It's telling me the tank isn't filling up because it's supposed to be a reservoir and the water would come flying out.

When I used to hike up this fast— Yeah, I was young.

Yeah, you're an old man now.

It's empty.

It is fully empty.

There's a crack in the top.

It shouldn't be empty.

Should the top be broken?

That's our problem. Clogged up. There's so much sediment in there. Uh, this should probably be done a little earlier. It should be done regularly to clean out sediment. That little water there, so full of sediment. I bet it's covering this up and perhaps clogging this up. That probably doesn't help that there's a bust in this lid. I think where it's collecting water, it's not— it's not coming in very fast. I feel like I need to get in there and Clean that out. I did not come prepared for that.

I don't think it's hooked up.

Oh really? I feel like we need to clean the sediment. We need to clean the sediment before we start getting the water flowing into this better. Definitely works better with the camera.

Get this out.

Oh shoot, this is my notebook. Oh shoot. Oh, there's something to scoop stuff out here. And then I realized my notebook fell out. Just ruined my notebook big time. Thankfully I just started it. There's a lot of water coming over this. This is the weir. This is where we receive it. My guess is the weir is full up with sediment. It's full as all get out. That's despite the cage. Well, the sandy— oh, get in! Don't hit the— don't hit the board. Be gentle with this. We don't want this to uproot. It's just really fine sediment. This needs to be done twice a year probably before we have a problem. We got it back on. Water should be coming. Is it coming yet? Get in! We're fixing it, me and my little boy. This is fulfilling as a mountain bike adventure. We are carrying a bike, but we're running out of strength. Been at this almost 8 hours. This wasn't supposed to take so long because it's an adventure. We're problem solving problems together. This is like the 5th, 4th or 5th technical breakdown in less than 10 miles. This is not a good And it's really useful, so maybe more fulfilling. It's still got to fill up up there. It's already going more than it was. Oh yeah, let's, uh, open this, let some of that sediment out, let that run clear. As soon as that runs clear, that means we've got all the sediment out up to the pipe. We don't want sediment running down through the line because it clogs up our, uh, deep pressure regulator. Yeah. Why? What's wrong? Okay. Oh, that's here. Okay, that's, that's here. All right, that's probably clogged too.

I have to clog that little thingy right there.

All right, that's the overflow of this box. I forgot this was on here. Look, we could clean sediment out here.

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, that's like—

wow, this spring box serves as a Another sediment filter before it goes into the tank. We need to come up once a month, the beginning of the month, clean this out. All right, he's into it too. It's coming off the weir up there, the water collection. It's coming down into the spring box. I think these are to collect sediment before it goes into the spring reservoir. There's a pipe with holes in it right here that takes it down through the pipe to the reservoir. There's an overflow right there. Oh good, we're gonna be watering cows in no time.

This is like how much water is coming out of it.

That's perfect, that's as much as coming in.

But it's like, it's like stopping, like it's shooting out. It's getting out mud.

All right, let's call it. Let's come clean this once a month. It's rushing in there now. Nice supply of water. Not dependent on— don't even need electricity. Yeah, look at that. Oh my God, look at that silt coming out of there.

Look at the difference though. I wish you're allowed to drink this water.

Yeah, you thirsty?

No, I'm not thirsty right now, but I wish.

We got it working up here. It feels very satisfactory. Such an ugly job. I'm filthy. Another test: is it coming out down at the bottom, or do we have a leak somewhere between here and the pastures. Test it. Okay, so far so good. Let's make sure that's not just buildup. Let it run for a minute. You'll have flow. Uh-oh. That's good, that's good. That's probably the speed that's coming off, huh? Yeah, getting air out. There it comes. And that's about the color it's coming off the mountain.

That's how much water is coming out.

Well, maybe a little more, but I hadn't filled up the pipe yet. 1,000 feet of pipe is a long fill up. Makes me so happy. That's right, because we had to track water way up there yesterday, and here today we're going that way. We had some hose and we're still able to get off the well. We need to let the water build up from our work to get a good flow. So we're good. The cows are watered today thanks to the boys. I think it might even reach— it might go tomorrow. The next day we gotta for sure figure this out. I'm thankful for that. That buys me a little time, more time than I thought. Thank you, boys. Come on, he wants to go. He always wants to go with on a bit of an errand. Cradle of Forestry. I left my hydration pack here, and thankfully somebody picked it up and turned it into lost and found. Hey, lost and found, I've left a black hydration backpack here. Somebody said it was here and we come get it Monday. That's it. Vivian, Henry, you all in here? Wow, Mommy, what is this?

It's on the other side.

This is definitely for little people. Oh, you get to see the hibernating animals. You in there, Henry? You afraid? It's the forest fighting helicopter. It's all there. The spot is in there. Spot's there too. What have you done? You gotta hold some paper towels. End of day. Do you like it? Wow, it's fantastic. It's gonna go all the way to the roof. You gotta pick out your grout, girl. That's all.

So far he hasn't led me astray, so I'm good with that one.

I'm good with that. All right, this old man's getting ready for next year's 100-mile bike ride. My knees were starting to give out on the last one, so I'm doing a little knees over toes workout here, walking backward for 10 minutes 3 times a week. Good for the knees. Every day in every way, we're getting better. Happy day.