Blues, Water (as always), Composting, Displaying and TBL

Fall has arrived. Driving up last Thursday on Hwy 285, we noticed that between Bailey and Kenosha Pass the Aspens now have a hint of yellow and there is color to the scrub Oaks, also the Ponderosas are starting to show their fall yellow needles. When the sun goes behind a cloud you are no longer just cooled, but chilled.

Driving back to Parker yesterday via Woodland Park sealed the deal in that Pikes Peak had a white dusting.

I once read on a sign "If you are lucky enough to live in the mountains, you are lucky enough." This is a great time of year in the high country.

But there are a lot of other things to cover, since I missed posting last week:

• Belvedere Blues Fest
• Pulled the well pump
• Installed more snow fencing
• Shoved horseshit
• Bringing the floating shelf to the installation point
• Big Lebowski 10 Year Anniversary
  

In nearby (35 miles) Canon City there is an annual Blues Festival, we had heard about but always managed to not remember until after it happened each year. This year they had ads running on TV in Denver so here was no excuse.

The Belvedere Blues Festival runs for three days. Marlys and I went on Saturday afternoon since it was just a great day outside. It wasn't that crowded at 3pm, but by the time the motorcycle toy run was completed it was loaded. A couple sitting across from us turned out to be from Delilah Peak which is just behind our parcel. Pam and John moved to Colorado from California about a year ago. John is a Dentist at the Federal Prison Complex.

After a while, Pete and Dana from AC, also showed up. Where the field dressing of the buffalo they had purchase with a couple of other folks became a point of much discussion. Pete needs to watch last weeks episode of "Man vs. Wild", where Bear is in the badlands of South Dakota and comes across a buffalo carcass. I have also heard through the grapevine that Dana may actually be the dead eye shot in this family.

The music was non-stop and the guy shown here sounded and had a style just like Leon Redbone.

After a few Bud Light Lime beers, which were pretty good when sitting outside in the sun, we headed out to get something to eat and drive home.

That was last weekend.

This weekend we headed up early, because of an appointment with Jack from Rick's Pump Service to look at the well. Those of you who are regular readers know that we have been having "issues", some of them self-induced with it this summer.

The latest started a couple of weeks ago when the cistern did not appear to be filling up during the week while we are in Denver. My trouble shooting amounted to looking at the controller and Pump Saver, meaning not much. After talking to Rick and trying a couple of things, e.g. putting the well pump in to manual mode, etc. we decided to get a professional out and trouble shoot the system.

Our well and pump have been in place for 10 years. When first drilled we still lived in Minnesota, so we weren't here to do a proper well development (pump the well). Although we pumped it when we were here and one of our neighbors (Joe) pumped it on occasion, it didn't get the daily exercise most experts say you need to give a new well. In fact, it took us most of the first summer to rid the well of the drilling fines and get it to a usable clarity. I have always though that this impacted the wells production and would some day impact our checkbook, again.

As the summer progressed we kept wondering if we had reached a point where a new well was in our future. Last Friday was our day to check this out.

Of course, Friday was a cold and rainy day. According to Kevin's weather station it looks like we got a little over an inch. Jack showed up mid-morning and we started inside with the electronics. The UHL (?) control wire to the well pump showed a short. This showed up visually when the fuse was replaced, the circuit energized and a bright blue flash was the result.

Problem 1.

Next we moved outside (in the rain) to the well head. the circuits there seemed OK, but the pump only seemed to run backwards when tested using the controller and generator on the truck.

Problem 2.

Jack said we needed to pull the pump. Having never seen our well opened up, and being the information savant I pretend to be, I decided I would stand there looking over Jack's shoulder in the rain, with no hat or rain gear only in a t-shirt.

So the truck was backed up to the well, across the majestic clumps of grass we have been attempting to grow around the patio (see shoveling horseshit later in this post). Did I mention it was raining and the pump truck weight just under 16K lbs. The clumps of grass are now at the bottom of deep truck tire width canyons.

Up went the derrick and the stinger was screwed in to the pump piping at the pitless adapter. As the assembly was pulled up it seemed to grab on something in the well. Jack looked worried. The first 20' section came in to view and the outside of it showed dirt. Jack looked more worried.

Possible problem number 3.

Just a little info on the "standard" anatomy of the wells in this area. The wells tend to be in the 500-700' deep range. The pump sits near the bottom of the well in water (hopefully) hanging from a Schedule 80 PVC pipe (diameters vary depending on the well, but generally in the 1.5 to 2.5" range). The PVC pipe is in sections 20' long with brass couplers connecting them. There are back flow valves installed at various intervals to hold the water up in the pipe when the pump is not operating. The pump is made up of a motor with a series of impellers stacked above. The number of impellers and the size of the motor are dependent on the height or head(well plumbing term) the water needs to be pumped. This whole assembly sits inside a 4" PVC pipe well liner. The lower sections of the liner is perforated to let in the water. The upper sections of the liner at the surface is steel to provide collapse protection. Many of the wells in our area have galvanized steel liners instead of PVC to provide collapse protection all the way to the bottom. There is also the case of a well having no liner.

Now knowing this the snagging and dirt on the pump pipe would seem to indicate something was amiss and explain the look of consternation on Jack as he pulled the pump. This could be a symptom of a collapsed liner.

A collapsed liner can be problematic, as it can trap the pump, let dirt into the well and reduce the capacity depending on its depth. The solution generally is to try and pull the liner out and insert a new one. Try is the pertinent word in the last sentence (I think it was a complete sentence). If the liner cannot be pulled a new well needs to be drilled, as drilling through plastic is again problematic.

Possible problem number 4.

As the pump pipe continued to come out of the well and the sections de-coupled and laid on the ground (important fact for later) we hit water 60' (3 sections) below the surface. This is considered the storage static level of the well, meaning the level it gets to when not pumped for a long period of time (1 month). Jack also asked if the pump had been pulled before because there was taping on the pipe sections that did not go around the electrical cable. This could be possible evidence of a previous pump installation and removal. I seemed to recall that ten years ago there was a problem with the original pump and it had to be removed and replaced.

To our knowledge the well is 275' deep, at 1.5 gallons per foot and the storage static level the capacity would be 322 gallons. In past testing the recover rate of this well was 265 gallons a day (of course this is an apples to oranges comparison, but more on this later).

At two hundred feet (10 sections) the pipe color turned slightly gray. This indicated that this was the static level of the well when being pumped. I of course asked about pumping intervals impacting this level, which they do, but not to a significant degree (I need to research this). This would give us a static capacity when pumped of 112.5 gallons, so if recovery is 265 gallons a day we should pump it empty about ~2.3 times a day to optimize the recovery rate. This will go into the setting for the Pump Saver.

We hit a piece of tape in the middle of a section, which I understand is a sign to whoever is pulling a pump that the next section is connected to said pump and to slow down.

The Jaccuzi Sandmaster now came into view. Sandmaster is probably a bit of an overstatement in that as to this point sand has been observed on the top of section coupling and in the backflow check valve that has been removed. This sand is another issue to be considered.

Problem number...screw it I lost count.

The motor housing shows a little discoloring and the last section of pipe is a little ballooned where it attached to the pump. These are indicators of heat.

Problem number SI+1 (screw it plus 1).

When the pump and motor are dis-assembled the motor shows a great deal of end play from thrust bearing wear possibly due to problems SI and SI+1. The pump itself cannot be turned and appears to be seized.

So in asking about a re-build or possible core credit toward a new pump the explanation is delivered gently, but I am sure Jack was laughing on the inside at my naivete .

In goes a brand new $1000+ pump. But with a slight change in the setup. Jack is going to put the first back flow valve 20' up, so that when the pump shuts down when the well is empty (this is how the Pump Saver works) there will be a back flush of the pump clearing any sand/dirt. Since this is now a developed well there should be little sand as compared to new well, but it seems to be a good idea and since we pump into a cistern the slight lag will not be noticeable.

The liner also appears to be OK. Jacks well camera is in the shop, so he can't drop it in, but he did drop a tape and it went to the static level with out any problems and based on the snagging action happening on ALL section (so it was near the top) and the poor quality of the taping it appears to have been the cabling hitting the pitless adapter plate.

Ah, you say, but what about the dirty pump piping. Well (pun), Jack believes that that and the poor taping were from when the original pump was pulled and the sections were laid on the ground, then re-inserted. I noticed that when Jack dropped the new pump in, he cleaned each section and coupler assembly, which probably didn't happen last time.

BTW, we pulled 15 20' pipe sections, which along with the surface steel section puts the pump 320' down in the well. That makes the static capacity 180 gallons, so the well should be pumped ~1.5 times a day to optimize the recovery and pump cycles. But of course, in looking at the intervals options on the Pump Saver the longest period is 320 minutes (~5.5 hours), of course once the cistern is full the pump will not operate.

Now on to other things.

Herb and I continued the endless installation of snow fence on Saturday. Since we were absent the t-post driver driver (Derek) and since Herb recently had a shoulder repair, I would be the driver driver. That being said we limited ourselves to 5 rolls (250') which is about 26 t-posts, even then I am feeling the pain still today.

When looking down the length of fence it gets you thinking about the Great Wall. We probably should have left openings every few hundred feet. Ah, it will be nice to have something to do next year.

I mentioned earlier about the clumps of grass we call a lawn. There is a real lack of topsoil in the construction disturbance zone that exists around the house so getting anything to grow is problematic. Also anything that doesn't appear naturally in this area is problematic to get growing. Bringing in topsoil is also problematic (Sick of this word yet?) due to the distance and expense, but wait we have a semi-natural occurring source of compost in the area, that is free for the taking or shoveling...horseshit, I suppose horse guano would be more polite.

After fencing I backed the "new" King Ranch Edition F-450 up to a pile of horse produced compost, kinda like Autumn Creek's own Milorganite (Google or Wiki it), and shoveled it into the truck bed. Here is a hint the lower in the pile you go the lower the aromatics seem to be and the less recognizable the "stuff" is. I did apply a truck bed diaper (tarp) so as not to carry the lingering effects of the "stuff" around into perpetuity (needed to use this word in reference to something other then uranium mining).

Marlys was indisposed for the spreading of the "stuff'.

Once the application had been made, it is now a waiting game to see if it the produces a "Scott's Lawn". Some rain would be nice, but this action probably angered the rain gods.

Speaking of angering the deities, when putting in the snow fence we were careful to keep it from being an affront to the Native American Executive (For the non-PC: Indian Chief) burial site (rock pile) by Herb and Maureen's drive. Since Herb told me this, I believe it to be as authentic as the Mountain Buttercup wild flowers he identified on the Memorial Day hike up West Antelope.

Now to the floating shelf. Since Derek brought home the Gauze Man (probably better stated as a person since it is not gender specific) earlier this year we have not had an appropriate (PC term I like to use inappropriately) place to display it. With the one large remaining piece of curly redwood we are going to put an appropriately styled shelf of an appropriate size beside the fireplace, an appropriate spot for the GM/W/P. The floating parts comes in, in that the shelf will have no visible means of support, kinda like the 45% of the population that don't pay taxes, but will receive a tax cut (I guess this means they get money back that they didn't pay in the first place.) under the Barack Obama tax plan.

The way this works will be secret, just like the secret bookshelf door. BTW who haven't I shown that to?

Last but not least this is the 10th anniversary of the Cohen Brother's movie "The Big Lebowski". Usually it is hard for me to understand everything that happens in their movies, and 'No Country for Old Men" was a real big disappointment. This one though has a physicality I can understand. For those who have seen me sitting around in shorts and t-shirt, tell me I don't look like "The Dude" (shoulders down) on the couch at Jackie Treehorn's. Also Julianne Moore keep you clothes on, please, or at least get a butt double.

I viewed (word saved for use when talking about high class TV watching) TBL twice this weekend, on Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Marlys watched most of it for the first time, finally on Saturday. She walked out on the Caulfield Family Room Premiere Friday night. Sorry, but there are no photos of the beige carpet interviews in order to honor the privacy requests of moi, and also because there were none, unless the soulful eye to eye communication between a human and a dog counts.

I wonder what it looks like in high def.