Thursday December 5, 2019 Guerneville CA.
Plans change
Today I was going to take my Toyota jeep up the hill to disconnect some springs and check the water system and move some big rocks to a creek crossing that needs them. With the recent rains some of the springs are putting a little clay into the water that makes it look murky but it’s otherwise just fine.
Started to drizzle
But by the time I took care of the chickens and got something to eat, which usually takes me awhile as I have to cook everything from scratch, it had started to drizzle again so an open jeep might not be the best thing to drive up the hill today.
I decided the dirt bike would be a better thing to take up even though I wouldn’t be able to move the rocks I had planned to move into a creek crossing.
Dirt bike it is
So I gassed up my brothers dirt bike and headed on up the hill on this road. Everything was nice and wet from the recent rains so riding was nice, no dust.
First spring
I stopped here at the main spring and checked it out. The smoke is just water haze in the air, sorta like a fog. The spring is up that ravine.
I’d already disconnected one of these springs awhile ago and forgot. Here’s the pipes on the left looking back down the hill.
Hog Wallow Spring
From there I continued on up the road to this spring, Hog Wallow Spring on the left.
Tis is a good spring but I think it’s the main one that adds clay so I needed to pull that black pipe out of it to disconnect it.
Here it is with the water running out. I need to take this one out and redo it this winter sometime.
No view at the ridge top
As long as I was up in the hills I continued on to the top here, but I couldn’t see much.
Most of the top of the hill was fogged in as I left down this road which is on the ridge top.
Road blocked
I was cruising along on this road when I ran into this downed rotten log across the road. I was just about to turn around and go another way when I realized I could get by the left side if I moved some of the broken up stuff.
I stopped and moved enough to get the bike through on the left and I was off again.
Creek Spring
I made it down to this new spring tap I was working on last summer and made sure it was out of the system. It has a lot of water which will be good next spring when I put it back into the system.
Checking the water tanks
I had one more thing to check so I rode on down to where our water tanks are here to make sure they were full and they were.
Checking the water at the valves
Just above the water tanks is this ravine where the feeder pipes come together to get to the water tanks so I walked on up it as I wanted to check the water flow and see if the springs were clear here.
Plenty of water
About a 100 feet up that ravine I have some valves where the pipes come together which I can turn to check the springs water flow and see what is clean and how much water is coming down each pipe from each main spring. Both pipes had clear water and we had about three gallons a minute coming down with the other springs disconnected. That’s enough water for the five houses this serves as with the rains we don’t need much water right now and I can stop watering the weeds in my yard.
Here’s the valves where the spring pipes come together where I check on things.
Headed for home
With that done and everything looking OK, I walked on back to the water tanks and hopped on the bike and went on home.
Of course I needed a nap after that and then I was back outside puttering around for about an hour before it got dark.
That was my day. Nice bike ride in a nice wet forest with just a bit of mist but not enough to get real wet. Perfect.