Thursday 8 July 2010

getting tanked up

We had the wettest winter on record here this winter, which was miserable for most of us but it has meant we've had loads of running water on the land, last year it all dried up by June, so we've been lucky. There's still a bit of water coming out of the spring, but only enough for the pigs. We bought a 1000 litre tank recently which we've been filling up from our 90 meter bore hole.



However, getting the water out of the bore hole requires the good old fashioned engine. Whilst not complicated pieces of machinery when they break down and you're not a mechanic, you are reliant on someone else fixing it.
Without the generator to get the water out of our hole, we have no water. OK, not a big deal as we are not currently living on our land, but we are trying to grow everything we need and grow food for the animals. So, when the generator stopped working, it went straight to the generator fixer recommended to us, but three days later he still hasn't even looked at it, I started to panic. Our neighbour and friend came up with a suggestion and I took it one step further. Our local president is a lovely guy and always seems willing to help and assist. So I asked if we could borrow a 1000 litre tank and pump 1000 litres of water out of the river and drive the water up to our land and get that water out of his tank and get it into ours. These tanks are heavy when empty which is why we needed to borrow one and not use ours, ours is currently in situ by the house which is 30 meters down the mountain. Rick broke his toe last week and I'm recovering from whiplash so bringing the tank up to the truck is not an option......

Anyway, everyone joined in and we all got wet, including my plants

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi!
A friendly suggestion: if you haven't done so already, make sure you wrap your water tank in something to keep the sun's rays off it. Shade netting (aka rede de sombra) or black plastic, for example. Not so much because of the algae forming inside, although that can be an issue, but because if you don't, the UV will slowly destroy the plastic. In a few years the plastic will be so brittle, you'll be able to poke your fingers right through!
Ciao, Alan

Rick and Sarah said...

Hey Alan, thanks for advice, we probably will cover the front of tank at least, it's not really in direct sun where it's situated, i've also got issues with what sunlight does to plastic on a chemical level which then affects the water. We have seen what the sun does as when we got here we bought a polytunnel with us and covered it in ordinary plastic, which lasted about 4 months. Polytunnel is now a climbing frame for kiwis!!!