The cold snap has broken, somewhat. It has not been below freezing in the last few days, but it also has not been above 37, so while things are not exactly frozen, they are also not exactly thawing either.
The galvanized riser that supplies water to the garden did not get drained before the cold weather hit (rookie mistake), and the shut-off valve never got turned off. This is despite the fact that when Ryan built the system, he put in a cold-weather shut off valve and drain valves at the end of every line. We opened the drain valves, but didn’t shut off the system. Then, when it burst and started spraying everywhere, Adam couldn’t get the cap off the PVC access pipe to turn the shut-off. So he had to just shut it off at the house, which effectively turned off water to the entire farm. We were carrying water in five gallon buckets for a few days.
Eventually, Ryan got to the farm and he couldn’t get the top off the access pipe either (we still haven’t gotten it off) so he just grabbed a saw and cut it off. Then we realized there was a second unforeseen problem.
His upper arms don’t fit inside a 4 inch PVC.
He got it cut low enough so he could barely reach the valve with his fingertips and turn it off. So now we can turn water back on to the rest of the farm. The access pipe doesn’t have a cap at this point so we covered it with a bucket until we can get one put in.
Adapt, improvise, overcome. ‘Murica!
We also had to cold-proof our brooder because we have chicks coming next week.
Two heat lamps and a double layer tarp tent. Hopefully that does it.
Little Farm in the Big City 