Well, it looks like the weather has finally turned. Winter is (if merely writing these words) headed out the door finally and we’re on to some decidedly more spring-like temperatures.
I spent much of my morning making the chickens watering system ready to again carry water. We used a bigger version of our Mega-Waterer v2.0, just stepping up the sizes of all the components, a 375 gallon reservoir, a bigger pond pump, 40′ of nipple waterers and very nearly 100′ of heavy 3/4″ hose to tie it all together.
Turns out that it works just swell down to about 10°F and then it’s freezy-time. Once it’s frozen, there’s no good way to thaw that much hose. To make matters worse, the barnyard hydrant froze up, so for the last real cold spell I had to resort to carrying water out of my basement in 5-gallon buckets.
In related news, I’ve found a great winter workout program.
Oh well, back to the drawing board for next winter.
Hopefully I can get all the water back up and running today and it’ll stay thawed out through the night, the low is 9°F tonight and then we’ll be clear of the severe cold for the foreseeable future.
