Tom's a muddy kid!

I needed to post this awhile ago, but here ya go!


Out at the "lower ranch" we water the animals by sucking water out of a hole Tom dug with a sump pump attached to a hose. It works very well, actually. It didn't start out that way and it has gone through an interesting evolutionary process to get where it is right now.

At first Chris rigged an auto water pump to a stationary bicycle with a hose down in the hole and another hose coming off the pump. That worked fairly well, but it had some structural problems and the pump tended to get plugged up with the not so clean water. Every so often, the hole would need revising and it would become enlarged in the process. Before long, the "well" was quite an impressive hole in the ground and contained a large amount of water. They had put a piece of plywood over the hole to keep things, and small pigs, and clumsy people out of the water.

That was all great for a time, but as one thing leads to another, this leads me to the story that I was going to tell.


Tom went out to water one afternoon and found that his well had been invaded by a very large sow and her babies. (There's no sheet of plywood in the world that can stand up to a 600 pound thirsty sow.) Chris was also there, and between them (I'm not really sure about the finer points of this part) they managed to cut a step in the side of the well that allowed the sow to scramble her way out of the hole. Unfortunately, there were 3 of her babies drowned at some point in the process. But, considering the situation, I think we got off lucky!

Now, the sow having been rescued, there was the well to consider. As you can imagine, the sow had totally thrashed the hole in her efforts to escape. But Tom, was not discouraged! He climbed right in there and started cleaning it out with his trusty shovel. He made it bigger and better, completely cleaned out and straightened up. He and Chris set the sump pump back up in the bottom of the well with a bucket for protection, and covered it over with big old logs, and plywood. It looks great. It works great too. Now anyone can go out, turn on the switch on the generator, pull one time to start the generator and water pours forth from the hose with great efficiency! Its awesome. (And Tom showered up just fine!)