Ever read the book, Water For Elephants By Sara Gruen? Enjoyable story. Mild adult situations but good Summer cabin reading.

The cabin, just like elephants, needs water too. We had two choices – dig a well or extend the local private water supply. The well was expensive ($5,000) and most pumps use 240V, an energy hog to those of us “off grid”.

Instead, we chose to use the existing “private” water supply. It terminates in an outdoor  sink that sits next to the creek about 1,000 feet from the cabin. It is supplied by a 1″ water pipe. Per code, the pipe has to be buried in a trench. Ugh. Can you imagine digging a 1,000 foot trench and how long that would take? Neither could I. I rented a trencher.

This trencher had two handles on one side of the motor and a trenching “business end” on the other side. I started it up, stood behind the handles and aimed it forward. Amazing machine as it dug the trench and filled it up all in the same maneuver. Odd, I thought, how can you get the pipe in the trench between the digging and the filling?

This couldn’t be right. Hmm. Think. Think. Think. Wait, maybe I am running it backwards? Against all safety thoughts of pulling heavy equipment towards me, I stood IN FRONT of the beast and steered it from there. Much better. It dug the ditch and threw the dirt off to the side. I set the depth for 18” to protect it from freezing and wayward plows.

As I slowly trenched (about 100 feet an hour), I watched the tank-like treads that moved it. To steer it, if you pushed right, the tread on the left would go a little faster. Push left, right tread speeds up. Nice theory but an unhappy thing happened. I was digging along the edge of the “driveway”, aka a path through the field, and because of the different length of the grass and resulting difference in traction, regardless of how I steered it, it always pulled to the right.

I would dig about 30 feet, curving to the right. Then I would stop, re-aim the monster, start in a new, corrected, direction. Off I went. Trench. Stop. Reaim. Trench. Stop. Reaim.  It was hot as I slowly trenched my way around the field.

This strategy gave an overall effect of a repeating scallop design. Very artistic but so much more work! Into this ditch I had to join and lay multiple twenty foot lengths of 1” PVC pipe. The pipe has an extruded female end so you apply solvent to the male and female ends,  the glue to the male and female ends; insert the male end into female end as far as possible while turning ¼ turn; hold 15-30 seconds;  lay assembly into trench; and proceed to next joint. Fortunately, the pipe is flexible and it followed the curving shape of my ditch.

As I trenched, I encountered three and four inch roots thirty feet away from the nearest tree. I knew I couldn’t complete the last 100′ up the gravel drive and through the woods. So weeks later, Dave (See “I Love My Dave” post) came to the rescue. His crew used a backhoe to dig a 24” trench up the drive to finish bringing water to the cabin.

The process was long and it was almost dark when I finished. Thinking I could do just one more thing, I drove the trencher up the hill to the cabin. I wanted to dig a ditch from the front of the house to the back, about 4′ from the foundation. Piece of cake (crumb cake) – it was, after all, backfilled dirt. Sadly, the trencher stalled after about 10 feet. I pulled and pulled the starter cord, checked the gas, choke on, choke off. Pulled and prayed. That rascal could not be started. Now it is no longer getting dark, it IS dark.

Reluctantly, I decided against getting out the portable lights and called it quits for the day. Sadly, I still needed to I load the trencher on the trailer as I had to return it to the rental store in the morning. I absolutely cannot budge this thing without the motor driving the treads. Darn thing must weigh 600 pounds and it is 30 feet from the trailer.

I had thoughts of calling calling the rental place and saying “Ah, I have to keep your trencher for another day or two. By the way, do you know a good tow truck company I can use to get your trencher back to you?”

Dwelling on how good I had gotten at moving heavy things, I started to plan how to lift it up with a chainfall, back the trailer under it, lower it and return it. What a lot of work!

As I pulled and pushed, moaned and groaned, a small chunk of concrete fell out of maws of the beast.  The story of this piece of concrete is interesting.

The walls of the cabin were poured first. They rose nine feet above where the slab would be poured. To pour the slab inside the walls of the foundation, the contractor lowered a chute over one of the foundation’s wall (on the uphill side) and “dropped” the slushy concrete where the slab was being formed.

A fair amount of concrete sloshed over the chute, spilling on the outside of the foundation. As it sat there hardening, I thought “This is going to be impossible to break up later so I had better break it up now.”) So I pounded it into smaller pieces with a sledge hammer. Swing. Hit. Swing. Hit. Swing. Hit. Break. Repeat.  Later, one of these pieces became the source of the trencher’s jam.

That concrete was hard (4,000 psi) and it was not even scratched. FYI, the cabin’s slab is 4.5 inches of that stuff, with some footings 24” deep. It is strengthened with lots of rebar, and it has a nine foot foundation rising above it that is 11.5 thick 3,000 psi concrete. With the massive logs forming the upstairs walls, we affectionately call the cabin “the bomb shelter”.

With the trencher running smoothly, I drove it onto the trailer and tied it down. One of the longest days of my life but now the job of Bringing Water to Cabin is done.

Maybe we should have just dug the well?

Your weary documenter,

Frank