Thursday August 21, 2014 Boonville CA.
Three days of posts in this one
We got a slow start this morning. We loaded up our digging tools in Marty’s jeep and drove up the hill by the cabin for about a quarter mile.
This is the cabin Marty built and is staying in.
We parked the jeep and grabbed our digging tools and started walking the quarter mile or so straight up the creek.
Marty is a bit older than I so I had to wait a bit for him to catch up. We are almost there in this picture.
There was a nice big fern patch that had some damp spots in there with some wild pig wallows mixed in too, so there seemed to be some water here. We followed the wet mud until we found where the water was coming out of the ground.
Here, I have Marty working away, while I watched.
It’s hard work and one gets tired fast at our ages.
But we kept at it, and eventually uncovered a fairly good water spring.
This is the little hole we dug to tap the spring with a pipe, which we will do tomorrow.
We worked until Marty couldn’t do anymore, then I took over. We were both beat when we headed back down the creek, but we had some more wet spots to explore on the way down.
This is one of the spots we explored, but it doesn’t look wet enough to be very promising for a water spring.
We also stepped off the distance back down to the road so we can get an idea of how much pipe it will take to get the water back to the cabin.
We hopped back in the jeep and went back to the cabin, while I walked another way back to see if the route would be good for a pipe to the cabin, but it wasn’t.
We got back to the cabin and it was nap time and that was pretty much it for the day.
Tapping the spring for water
Friday August 22, 2014 Boonville CA.
Today we were going to work on the springs some more. We had to tap the spring and run the 500 feet of plastic pipe we had. It’s not enough pipe to do the job, but it will get the job started.
First thing we had to do was make a little screen box for the spring tap. Here’s the screen box we made and the parts we will us to tap this spring. The screen box goes over the green thing.
We drove up the hill in Marty’s jeep. Now we had to roll out the roll of plastic pipe. 500 hundred feet rolled up the road, then I will pull it up the hill to the right of the jeep.
Here, I’m pulling the plastic pipe up the hill, which you can see on the ground. Marty is down there too, slowly working his way up the hill. It’s steep.
We ran the pipe through this area as we climbed the hill to the spring area where the water was coming out of the ground.
The water was coming out of the ground in this big fern patch. Marty is working away on it.
Here we have dug the hole where the water is coming out of the ground and installed the spring tapping pipe. You can see the clay dam we made to catch the water. Note how small this whole setup is. The screen will go on top of the green thing and then we’ll put rocks on top to provide cracks to the drain. The idea is not to have a puddle of water around the screen. What water comes in, runs directly into the drain and on out and down the pipe.
This shows the rock we used to fill up the space to provide cracks for the water to get to the drain. The black plastic piece laying there goes on top, then it’s covered up with dirt to make for a sanitary spring tap. It’s all covered up so not bad stuff can get into the water.
Marty was taking a lot of breaks today. Here he is just as we are about to cover it all up and ready to hook up the black pipe I dragged up the hill.
We covered it all up and worked on laying the black pipe out nicely as we went on down the hill. When we got to the jeep, I left Marty to go up and turn it around and I walked the short distance back to his cabin and waited for him.
Here he comes and we are done for the day.
That’s all we can do on this spring project until we get some more pipe and we are just about too pooped to do much more anyway.
Saturday August 23, 2014 Boonville CA.
Since Marty and I were worn out from working on the water system the last two days, we decided to take it easy today.
We took a long time getting it going this morning, but after we did, I had Marty take me up the hill in his jeep so I could walk down to the new spring we tapped and put a metal stake there to mark the spot so we could find it later, after all the big ferns grow back over it.
Dave joined me as we walked down the hill. Marty and some friends were waiting for us with his jeep at the place we are putting the water storage tank, a 55 gallon plastic drum. The drum needed a place to sit, so here the guys are prepping a spot for the drum.
Marty and Dave are just putting the finishing touches on the tank here, while I watched.
After that, we drove on up the road further to check out another possible spring area, then headed back to the cabin. Some of us walked as it was all down hill.
After something to eat and a bit of a nap, I had Marty take me up the hill again so I could walk down another spring water pipe to see why there wasn’t much water coming down.
He dropped me off and I headed on down the hill through the brush. I found this spot where some kind of critter has eaten into the pipe to get some of the water. I didn’t have anything to repair it so I left it to fix later and continued on down the hill.
That night I made some home made noodles for dinner. Here I have them rolled out.
I stacked the rolled out dough in an accordion type pile and cut them out.
A little shaking out and a big plate of noodles appears ready to be cooked.
Tomorrow, I plan to head up to Fort Bragg to kayak the Noyo river, so I’ll likely post this post at the McDonalds before going kayaking.
