We have been doing site prep for a water tank install for the last couple of weeks. It was supposed to Arrive on Good Friday, but had to be delayed until the following Tuesday. It was supposed to arrive at 8:00 AM but at 6:30 in the AM I got this picture from Adam.
It’s here!
Of course we had put together this big old plan for how to get it off the truck, but I was at home with all the kids still asleep so, while I hustled them all out of bed and into the car (with school books, breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, diapers, jammies, etc.), Adam…
Rolled it off the truck by himself.
He thoughtfully put a strawbale in the way to stop it from rolling too far. The tank rolled right over it, but it did slow it down a little, and then Adam was able to roll it to the end of the shop and bump it up against the willow trunk.
So then, since everyone was awake and packed and snacked, we decided to go to morning Mass.
Once we got back from Mass we got down to work getting the tank to its final resting place.
Size comparison.
Being round, it is not hard to roll. The trick was rolling it down a narrow path between the shop and the propane tank and then pivoting it on a piece of plywood that we had set up on the edge of the pit. Then we paused to plan out our next step.
Like a glove!
Actually, the fit was tighter than anticipated, and once we pulled the mats out we found that the near edge was actually sitting up on a little pile of dirt that had slid out of the wall from the weight. Too easy to lever up the edge of the tank…
And scrape out the excess dirt.
And there you have it. One water tank.
5,000 gallons may sound like a lot, but when you consider that a full sized adult milk cow drinks 50 gallons of water a day, that’s only 100 days worth of water, which is not much. We routinely go 60-90 days in the summer without appreciable rain in this neck of the woods. This should help reduce our dependence on municipal water, and increase soil water retention while reducing the amount of runoff we are sending into the Puget Sound during the winter.
Never underestimate the power of a Kraeger man who knows how to use his head.
Little Farm in the Big City 