Not so freeze-free.
Saturday we had the pleasure of digging up the outside hydrant in our back sheep lot (again). It’s a freeze/frost free faucet meaning it’s not supposed to freeze in the winter….guess what.
So Randy and I dug the whole thing out. The hole ended up being 3-4’ deep and the first 3 inches or so was frozen. It was cold that day, but it had to be done.
There is always someone who wants to drop in and help.
She really checked out the shovel, but never pitched in.
We discovered the problem. The 5-gallon bucket that was supposed to prevent dirt from getting in the pipe had broken and filled with dirt.
We needed rock to put around the new bucket to prevent dirt from getting into the pipe again and causing the faucet to not drain back and freeze up again. So we drove to town where a friend of ours gave us 2 five-gallon buckets full of rock to use. Home we went to finish up the project.
At this point I went inside to do some cooking and housekeeping. In the meantime Randy went to finish up. Shortly after we parted he came inside to tell me he had broken the new faucet and we needed to buy a new one before dark when it would freeze our now exposed piping in the hole. He called around and found a new faucet a 30 minute drive away. So we loaded up and drove to get our new-new $120 faucet. Sigh!
Long story short…..the faucet is fixed, the sheep and chickens have water, and it is a lot easier on Randy doing chores to not have to carry a five-gallon bucket of hot water out to thaw the faucet or drag a hose from the shop and run it from another faucet out to the tanks to water the sheep and chickens. Life is good!
A Simple Prairie Life 
Sorry to hear the faucet froze, but at lease it happened now instead of when the ground was frozen alot deeper. Glad everything finally worked out.
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