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Winter Prep
The foaling apartment booked for tomorrow so right after breakfast I went up there to make sure all the mess was cleaned up from moving the ladders and step stools in and the changing of the lightbulbs. Once that was done the cleaning supplies were taken over to the barn and the living room, kitchen, halls and bathrooms were cleaned from the Sunday company. Mark left for Princeville to pick up the garage door he had ordered from EB Buildings. He was able to fit it in his car but had to drive with the back opened and froze on the way home.
We have extreme cold moving in tomorrow so today we wanted to put a heater in the water pit then cover it well with a tarp. We had everything we needed, got up to the pit and opened it to find it was full of water. We obviously had a frozen pipe on that last cold spell that started pouring water out once the temperature rose above freezing. Mark went to find his sump pump but it wasn't where he thought he put it. We spent some time looking for it but finally called Mike to see if we could borrow one. He told me there was one down at the creek so the golf cart was taken down there to get it. The sump pump we had could fit in that black pipe in front of the hydrant but this one could not.
It had a rigid pipe coming off the bottom as it is used for a creek. Mark had to hold it while I held the pipe.
We got it drained enough to see where the water was coming from.
Then called Tim Meister. He agreed to come right after work. I went down the basement to turn the water off. While we were waiting for Tim, Mark got a bale moved into Evan's paddock.
I cleaned out his automatic waterer then we put a tarp around his to help keep the cold out. I probably will not put him back in there until I leave for Gulf Shores but wanted it ready before the cold hits, as we don't like to run the heavy equipment when it is below zero.
While working there I noticed the two trees Mark has down and cut up. Both were dead and both should make good firewood next year.
When Tim arrived he finished pumping out the pit.
I went back to the house to turn the water back on just for a bit for him to see it was only one broken valve. Below he is removing the broken one and putting on the new one.
It took about 20 minutes from start to finish. This is the broken valve. 
Once Tim left we put in the heater, covered the pit well then put a tarp around that. We had enough time to unload the garage door from Mark's car before we needed to get ready for church.
Gregg Rumbold had the message tonight on Colossians 3 click HERE if you would like to watch that. We decided not to go out to eat tonight. Joan beat us home but when we pulled in we could see her car on the main drive and both Joan and Mackenson outside in front of the car. The wind knocked down a tree and they were moving it off the drive. We are having wind guests in the 40-50 mph range so Mark will need to check the drives tomorrow morning. I'm planning on a quick trip to Middle Grove to make sure there is plenty of hay out before the extreme cold hits.
