A Pet Cock Solution?

Well, yes, actually. You see, the plumbing down in the basement that controls the yard and barn hydrants was leaking. I had tried to use it to keep Lake's watering trough full, and that was when the trouble started. A regular drip, drip, drip from the faucet down below, that would fill a 1 quart bucket to overflowing overnight.

Then we went to the garden, where another hydrant is, and tried to hook up the sprinkler. This is a sprinkler attached to a 4 foot section of pipe, that runs down to (what else?) an old tire rim for weight and stability, and is hooked to a short section of hose that hooks to the hydrant. Well, the sprinkler was shot, the pipe was full of dirt (when the water pressure built up in the pipe, it shot six inches of dirt three feet up in the air). We replaced the sprinkler head, cleaned out the pipe, and - still, almost no reach, no pressure.

And the pipe in the basement leaked more. The only solution - fix that pipe. The faucet was old and rusted and didn't turn off completely, so Mike bought a pet cock. And since the pipes were not in such great condition either, he bought some extra connections and fittings - because, he said, with his luck, the pipe would ring off when he replaced the faucet. He was right.

But the most interesting thing was the buildup of 100 years or so of stuff in that pipe. It was half clogged with rust and dirt and disuse. So once everything was replaced... uh-oh. You could hear the water RACING thru the pipe. So we went out to the hydrant - which we had left open for bleed-off. The water was rushing: no, slamming out of the pipe! We hooked up the sprinkler - and with a sudden gurgling gasp, the water flew out of the end and started spinning that sprinkler head, reaching from driveway to road to road to back field. POW!

Funny what a simple little pet cock can do...

You people are perverts, you know that?