Today's Plans and 2 am Tick Checks

Good morning my sweet friend!

Forgive me if this is not as eloquent as could be...it was a short, broken up night. :)

But first let me tell you about our plans, God willing, for today.  I am not sure if I have mentioned this, but years ago the Dept of Ag (or one other government agency) came to the previous owners and asked if they could sink a well to do some testing.  The end result is that the Lord provided us with a beautiful 105 foot well!  The house is on public water, but the well will provide free water for our orchard, greenhouse, garden, and coop.  The well should be deep enough to not to run dry during a drought.

This is where TWS is beyond a blessing.  I just would have tried to jimmy some sort of suction device and let it end there.  He rented a test pump, figured out the throughput, designed a well station, assembled all the components, built a well house, ran power, figured out what submersible we needed, and today we are going to sink the pump into the well.  It is "project day" for the babies, as we are going to need all hands on deck to wrangle 100 ft of PVC into an 6 inch pipe.

Our pond is down to level.  After our massive rains this weekend, we noticed that the pond was literally filled to the brim.  TWS found that the drain to the pond was clogged (it flows to a drainage canal that goes under the road to the other side).  Poor guy got et up by ants as he had to clear the clog.  Then he went back to the shop and created a new screen system for the drainpipe.  It was pretty impressive to see water gushing out of the pipe to the canal :).  The water was so high that we saw thousands of hatchling fish in the pond--some so tiny that a magnifying glass would have eased the strain on your eyes!

Now for the tick check.  Y'know, on Pinterest and many blogs, there is a sense that farm life is serene, romantic, and beautiful and such.  There are no pics that I have found searching "farm life" on pinterest that shows a gently beaming mom checking everyone's hair for ticks.  :)

I am astounded by how many there are here.  I lived much of my life in the south, as did TWS.  However, we have never seen so many ticks.  Tick checks and hats are becoming a normal part of our day.  It is an EXCEEDINGLY small price to pay, but definitely not on the brochures :).