On the 2nd week of July our pipe order came in so we went to McFarland Spring again. We were able to reach drinker 1 and had enough pipe to start toward drinker 2. We ran out of daylight so we stashed the 2nd roll on the hill. This section of the line is on steep ground and we were trying to find a better way to string the line along the hill side. Bill contacted the Back Country Horseman who had been such a great help to us on this project in 2015 and was told that they were busy doing trail restorations until some time in late September, but they were all about helping us out then. We will wait to hear from them so we can finish this part of the project.
On the last week of June Bill DeJuncker went to Pine Spring to check on the amount of water in the trough. The cattle had it bone dry and Bill found a dead deer laying next to the trough. This is very upsetting and we hope that in 2018 we can get the steel fence built around the corral so we don’t lose any more deer.
In the first week of June WHIN went back to McFarland spring with 1000 feet of new pipe to replace the old pipe with. Water was over flowing at the stock tanks at the end of the line so our repairs had held up until we got back to the spring. It took all the rest of the day to get the new pipe installed, and we found out that we were at least 2 rolls of pipe short of reaching drinker 1. We went back to town and ordered 2000 feet of pipe and are waiting for it to arrive.
On the 2nd week in May WHIN went to McFarland Spring to turn on the water and fix any leaks that we find. Winter was very good to us as above average snow fall was recorded. The spring flow was much improved over the previous year and water would not be a problem this year. What was a problem were the numerous leaks from the spring head to drinker 1. Most of the day was spent fixing all the leaks. The poly line that feeds all the drinkers is 25 years old and needs to be replaced, so after returning to town Greg Clark said he would find a source for WHIN to purchase new pipe. Greg found a source and we ordered 1 roll of pipe (1000 feet), it took two weeks for the pipe to arrive and another trip to the spring was scheduled.
On the 4th Saturday of March WHIN went to Lincoln County to do our spring adopt a highway clean up, we met at Love’s truck Stop and car pooled to mile marker 32 where we start the clean up. There was the usual trash, tires cans glass bottles plastic and broken car pieces. It took about 2 hours to clean up, then we put all the trash bags in the pick up point for NDOT to come and pick up. We then went to the Windmill for breakfast ( a WHIN tradition), the food was great as usual and then we headed home.