The flooding in the barn had to be dealt with right away. Yesterday we spend about five hours in the barn removing water. First we had to create a small canal for the water to travel from the barn to the pond. Have you noticed that this has been a chilly winter? Yes? Good, then you can imagine how rock solid the ground was. We were slicing off dirt mere centimeters at a time, but eventually came up with this.
We then had to go dig out some snow from the pond area - which is also frozen, so the water had someplace to settle after removing it from the barn. Next, we started pushing the water out using snow shovels as "paddles" of a sort.
When my husband left to pick up our youngest from a party, I was there alone and thought I would try to syphon the water out using the hose. It was less than successful on many levels. First off, the hose was quite cold and therefore not particularly flexible. I tried to get it to lay flat under the water to start the syphon, but every time I got one section to stay flat another curled up. So, no go. It was then, as I was standing with my hands in the icy water I realized there was oil in it. Yes, we had had a plastic container sitting under the tractor to catch any oil leaks, and when things flooded, the container started floating, and apparently tipped, so there was not only water everywhere, but motor oil coated water. All I could think of was "I am BP, polluting the water." sigh.
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| The water level was well over my foot. |
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| Barn floods are messy |
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| A small dike stemming the tide. |
The boys and I kept a pretty good rhythm going as we pushed the water out. Then my husband came back with a "trash pump" and in an hour we were able to do the rest of the barn.
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| our salvation |
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| It had to be higher than the hose |
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| We started to see cement! |
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Water coming through the output hose - VICTORY!
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So we got most of the water out of the barn, and determined that it was, indeed, all from the melting and the rain, not a burst pipe which we were worried about. The last step was to dig an exit for water sitting in a large puddle in the driveway area.
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| My farmer boy! |
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| Before |
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| After |
We obviously have to figure out a way to keep this from happening next year, or figure out how to afford a new shed/barn for the sheep, because we cannot have them in this barn if this is a sample of how Spring will be. But at least it happened BEFORE the sheep arrived, so we know what we are up against, and can take steps to correct it, or avoid it happening again.
I hope your weekend was a bit less cazy.
