Hi Ho the Derry Oh The Farmer in the Well ( instead of Dell)

Well there has been a lot of goings on in the barn over the last several weeks. The biggest new detail that we now have a water source for the barn. Up until now we had a hose on a reel outside but that was connected to a temporary line Francis ran underground from the house last year. It was certainly not winterproof at all. But now we have our own source! Last year while Francis was working on repairing the barn outside wall, he noted a pipe coming in through the cement wall. We decided it must come from the old stone well out beside the machine shed. So instead of using the house and having to drill through the foundation of the house and dig a 6 foot deep trench all the way from the house, we decide we can use the old well as our source of water. And so it began....

• dig a hole 6 feet deep to allow a standpipe pump to be installed ( this type of pump will self-drain and so no water remains in the standpipe to freeze). There are other details about the hole and stones and drain pipes but I won't bore you with those as I don't totally understand it all)
• connect water pipes to existing underground pipe

• McGyver together something so that the water line from well connects to electric water pump, back to the standpipe and also to another hose /tap so a water hose can be connected to it ( Sorry but that is the best I can describe what Francis has spent the last 3 weekendsdoing! It is all very technical and complicated and I have no idea how he actually made it all work- but it does!!

The contraption thingy that goes from water line to pump and standpipe

• fill hole back in with stone

                                                             

• pour new cement to cover hole

• connect a water pump and pressure tank ( he was going to use an old pump we had but it didn't have enough "pulling power" so he had to buy a new one).. its all red and shiny

• test the system using generator as power source as we still don't have mains electricity in the barn 
• take a detour to HOme Depot and buy a new generator as the other one won't do the job ( The new one is huge, powerful and even has a remote starter so I can figure out how to start it!) PS He did try getting the old one to work properly and wasted a whole afternoon draining out the gas from the old one and retrying with "clean" gas" but to no avail.. so once his patience had reached its limit he said a bad word and went off to the store to buy a new one. 
• Test system--- Hmmmm something not quite right.. everything works but no water 😠 ( Francis looked something like this lol)
• Decide system needs a foot valve ( one-way valve) on the end of line that is in the wellso water line stays full of water and doesn't drain back into well
• Buy foot valve
• Drain well to allow Francis to go down in it and install valve onto line in well. This is actually the scariest part as the well is just an old dug well shored up with stones. The engineering of our forefathers is astounding. This well is still standing and must be well over 100 years old. A few rocks around the "rim" are a bit loose which will be another "Francis project" to fix and cement them into place. What is amazing is the stones are merely stacked in a circle one on top of the other- no mortar holds them together. The well is about 25 feet deep- measured by putting a ladder in it. 

View from inside the well

View from top of well

Well as it looks from ground level

• Redrain well the next day as it filled up over night 
• Install valve
• Scoop out all floating debris on top of well water 
• Go back into barn and try pump again...... Hey Presto after 20 min to prime the line using a system he had McGyvered together, we have running water!!!😤

We ( the Royal "we", of course I mean Francis (alias McGyver)) will have to build an insulated box of some sort or a small room ( open for discussion at present) that can be heated to prevent freezing of the pump in winter-- IF and when the stables are to be used during winter time. At this time, that is in the future. 

This project took 3 weekends due to inclement weather and other obstacles mentioned above. Lots of "to"ing and "fro"ing from the local hardware store - Smitty's. The ladies at the cash know Francis by name and joke to him all the time about " What did you forget this time?" as he is there several times a weekend