My day in pictures

At daylight I went to get the pump set up to pump water from the upper settling pond to the stucco tank. The water is about a foot down below the dam because it loses a lot overnight. That's why prompt pumping is important. The NOISY gas pump is sucking the water out and running it into the 2" blue line at the center of the photo.

From there the blue line runs alongside the big tank and goes across a corner of it into an underground 3" pipe that comes out near the stucco tank.

I got the whole thing set up in record time, about an hour. Below photo shows where I rigged the fittings to put the water into the 3" pipe.

And the next photo is where the 3" pipe exits the ground. Found fittings for there too and am running it into the stucco tank. 

The water level in the tank ended up 18" below capacity, which is a few inches fuller than it was after pumping from that June 15 rain, so I'm good to make it to next rainy season if I have to, barring leaks or faucets left on.

Meanwhile, in between gassing up the pump and making sure everything was going smoothly, I decided to whittle away at the dead cottonwood tree. The only place that could accommodate the brush I sawed off was the arroyo, and as it's between the two dams, it had 2 feet of water in it. So I sloshed down the arroyo with every limb I cut off. I used my skill saw some, and a hand saw some. Yes, it was a killer, but by me doing it carefully, one branch at a time, and soon, the least amount of impact would happen to the smashed vegetation. I didn't think about doing a before picture until I had already cleared the path to the arroyo, so this is kind of a "project underway" shot.

After 8 hours of pumping, and about 4 hours of whittling, I could have moved the pump and lines to pump out the arroyo, but chose not to. For one, I was too exhausted to set up the pump and lines, etc., plus the arroyo vegetation is important to me. We'll surely get more rain, anyway. If the water wasn't full of gambusias, I might have talked myself into it in order to prevent mosquitoes, but that isn't a concern anymore this year.

So here is the after shot looking south. The tree trunk is still blocking the path, I can't do anything about that until I can get someone to come with a chain saw. That acacia tree (Schott's, I think), in the middle of the photo, I rescued from its flattened state. That light colored stick that looks like a trunk is actually a prop I put under it to get it to grow back straight again.

This last photo is the after shot looking north toward the water-filled arroyo

And now my body is so angry with me that it refuses to do my bidding. But it has a short memory.