After our usual Saturday morning pancake breakfast (yum) I bagged up the dehydrated chili for the trip and worked on odds and ends until around 3:30, when I took off to work on a project for the fire department.
A property owner on the northern end of our district gave us permission to install a dry hydrant in his pond. This will be helpful if we have a fire out that way. We won’t have to run all the way back to the firehall for water, but should be able to draw water from this pond summer and winter. We’ve never done one of these before, so we were anxious to see how it all worked. The first job was to get the hole dug. One of our firefighters volunteered his backhoe and his time to do that job.
Next we carried the pipe out and floated it into position and sunk it. That part of the project happened just in time, because the side walls of the hole caved in just as we got it down there, which buried it nicely. Then the backhoe brought loads of sand and gravel over and backfilled the pipe. The big elbow was glued on, which included the fitting we’ll use to attach to the truck. The area around the dry hydrant was then smoothed out and the backhoe hauled the rest of the gravel onto the driveway area we’ll use when we back the pumper up.
Finally, the backhoe operator smoothed everything out and we called it a day. On the way home I celebrated by stopping at the corner store and buying some ice cream. I’m finding more and more reasons for celebration lately 🙂
After a very nice supper, Franco and I did our backpack walk. I was more than 3/4 done when the pager went off and I had to ditch the backpack and run home. I grabbed my radios and jump bag, and headed over to the residence. It took all the rest of the evening. I’d normally be asleep by now, but this one has me kind of wound up, so I’m up for a while tonight.