It's Sunday evening.
The weekend was busy, although it doesn't look like I got a whole lot done.
Saturday morning I went off to the bank to deposit my salary cheque, then I came back home and hauled the old water softener out of the garden shed. I took the head off, and the condition of the filtration media was pretty disgusting, so I drained it out and discarded it. I'll have to buy a couple of bags of the Cation resin from work this week.
I stripped the head completely and soaked all the different components in white vinegar to get the buildup and gunk off. The piston and the seals and spacers and the brine valve were really shot to shit, so I got a new set of all of them from my spares bin in my van. I'll give the boss a list of everything I used so he can bill me for it.
I got a call-out early afternoon, but it wasn't a big job so I got done in about two hours. Then later in the afternoon Mrs Zog and I took a drive down to the house of a work colleague who wants me to help her fix the side of her house. I took a long look and told her that it would be at least a two day job, so we decided that we would do it in 3 weeks time when we are both off the weekend. Then we came back home and fed the dogs. I was pretty tired after a long week and busy day, so it was a really early night for me.
Today I was awake again as usual just before the sun came up. I let the dogs out for a pee and made some coffee, then sat outside in the early morning cool and watched the sunrise. It really is the best part of the day. After Mrs Zog got up I fed the dogs and made more coffee. Then I got busy re-assembling the softener head after the big clean. I had also plugged the timer mechanism in overnight to make sure that it was working properly, and I was really happy to see it was working perfectly. I put the softener head together, but didn't attach the timer mechanism yet. I'll do that when I put the head back on the tank after I put the new filtration media in.
About two years ago I found a whole bunch of irrigation pop-ups at a clean-out that I did as a handyman. I kept them in a box until today. I used the hose to test them, and found that ten of the eighteen were able to be salvaged. So I headed off to the Home Depot and bought 200 feet of irrigation pipe and a bunch of Tees and elbows etc. Back home I set up a section of 6 pop-ups on a line behind the palms and hibiscus plants in the back corner, then I connected them to a hose to test them.
The result was not what I was hoping for. The amount of water that the pump is able to deliver just wasn't enough to even pop up all the pop-ups

6 pop-ups that each have a flow rating of 15 gallons per hour is 90 gallons per hour. My pump should be able to deliver a whole lot more than that... so I did some investigating. The well pipe is a 2 inch pipe inside the ground. Above ground it drops to a 1.5 inch pipe, then down to a 1 inch pipe all the way to the pump. The pump is designed to accept a 1.25 inch pipe and discharge into a 1 inch pipe. So I guessed that the pump just wasn't able to suck up enough water from the well...
So I went off to the Home Depot again, and bought 50 feet of 1.5 inch PVC pipe. Back home I dug a new trench from the well head all the way to the pump in the back yard, probably about 15 meters long and 30 cm deep. That was quite a job in the hot sun... then I cut away the old 1 inch pipe and plumbed in the new 1.5 inch pipe. I used my home-made pneumatic vacuum pump to prime the well again, and tested the pump. Success! The pump is now able to deliver enough water to pop up all the pop-ups, and when using the sprinkler I can now put it in the middle of the lawn and it reaches all the way from the workshop to the fence

I made a second line of pop-ups for the side of the house to water the plants and lawn on that side. I will make a third one for the front of the house, but I first need to get a couple more fittings and stuff. Maybe later in the week or next weekend...
That took up the whole of my Sunday. I just had a shower and supper, and after I have finished updating y'all I'll watch a couple of the fishing programs that I recorded on the DVR, then off to bed. This coming week is gonna be a rough one...

Have a lekker day off tomorrow y'all, and thanks for reading
