I won't be going into too much detail about why we used two tractors, what they did, etc. Ninety percent of my readers are female and really don't give a hoot; many of my male readers live on farms and know exactly what we were doing. Besides, if I tried to explain, I'd get half the information wrong.
So today it had to be done. We pulled the pump. As with almost every job on the farm, it started with a tractor.
That's our brother-in-law's Mahindra, the one we're babysitting because they moved to St. Louis.
Now a second tractor, Cliff's John Deere, comes into play.
Cliff gets the chain directly over the well.
At this point Cliff's nephew and his girl friend's son came out to help. Mike is very talented at using Cliff's tractor for jobs like this. Things would not have gone as well without him. Oh, Cliff and I have done this job alone a time or two, but it was not easy.
They start lifting the pipe out of the well. Yes friends, that tiny six-inch-wide hole is our well. There's no danger of anyone falling in the well at our house. The pipe is over two hundred feet in length, made of plastic. The pump is at the other end of it, so it all has to come out. We don't want to let it bend too sharply or it might crack; then we'd have to replace the pipe as well as the pump.
There's a rope attached to the pump at the bottom of the well; that's what is used to pull it to the top.
Hang on, Jake! It's a good thing that kid is tall.
Back up the tractor, Mike!
At this point, it was time to put the Mahindra into service again. Unfortunately, she wasn't charging. The battery was dead.
Cliff brought out the battery charger and got her started again. Don't worry, Patrick. Cliff will get your baby charging again.
Once they got her running, we were back in business.
Here comes the pipe.
Diane and her son directed the pipe across the yard, all the while making sure not to bend it too sharply.
And there it is: the faulty pump.
If we hadn't curled the black plastic pipe back on the bank, it would have been laying across the road.
Cliff and I went to Feldman's to get a new deep-well pump.
They didn't have a very big selection, but beggars can't be choosers. Cliff worried over his decision, because he doesn't have good electrical skills. On the way home with our purchase he spoke on the cell phone with his brother, who recently installed a new pump. Then he felt better about his choice.
Time to wire up the new pump. By the way, this is the location of our old well, the one that started pumping sand with our water. All the electrical hookups are still located there, but the well we now use is about 15 feet away.
Cliff did the final wiring, the nephew went and flipped a switch on the fusebox, and we were in the water business once again.
Our daughter was here to lend moral support, and her husband helped out during this process.
Wells: Just one more down side of living in the country.
