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Water, Water, Everywhere
Pete and I live off-the-grid, meaning without a conventional power source. For this reason, we have to do some things differently that we would otherwise. In the June, 2008 Icelandic Horse Quarterly, I wrote about our unique and somewhat novel approaches to water management.
Off the grid. These words initially conjured up images of pancakes coming off the griddle. However, the subsequent images, of living in a log cabin, with a wind generator and solar panels sounded appealing. So I brought into what Pete and I now consider to be a sustainable lifestyle-in-progress.
Life here at Squalor Holler has repeatedly brought the clichéd phrase necessity is the mother of invention,” to mind. Who would have thunk it, that having horses would force us to be even more innovative than say, we had just ourselves to worry about?
Here, after some trail and error is how we are now doing some horse-related tasks. We now have a water collection system. The water runs off the sloped barn roof, into gutters. The gutter water is stored in a 300-gallon container that we purchased from the now defunct Matanuska Maid Dairy. I give this directly to the three horses, pouring it into three water buckets that are attached to the outside of the barn.
I am most pleased with my most recent invention, the hay soaker. Tinni has heaves, which means that he must have dust-free hay. Up until recently we’ve fed him hay “imported” from Washington, year-round. Seeing as this was cost-prohibitive, and that we had half barn full of dusty hay, I sought an alternative. I first ing at several designs on the internet, I devised one of my own. I was given a 70-gallon water trough, which I filled with collection container water. I then drilled one-inch holes in three 5-gallon feed supplement buckets. I filled each with dusty hay, and put them in the trough. They floated, so I anchored them with rock-filled buckets. I let soak for six hours, then lifted the hay-water filled buckets onto 2x4’s which I laid lengthwise across the trough. (This allowed for drainage.
My soaker system enabled me to both feed previously-dusty hay to all three horses, and to better monitor hay consumption. (I go by the formula 2.2 pounds of hay per 100 pounds of body weight.) Plus, the dust water is good for the garden.
I have since thought that one might rig a similar soaker by using a 50-gallon barrel. And mesh hay nets would complement this particular system.
Mine is a seasonal solution. This upcoming winter I’ll go back to giving the expensive stuff, and cut costs by giving Tinni pelleted feed.
The answer to the question, how do I cool down the horses after a ride if I don’t have a garden hose.? came to me last week as I was out on a ride. I found an abandoned kid’s swimming pool, brought it home, and filled it with water. I now have the horses step into it, and I sponge them down.
We also make use of excess water. Our pen has an intentional slope, which has eliminated what I call “the lake effect.” The runoff enters a spillway, a 20 foot-long by three foot deep pit. Come breakup, (Late April or early May) I don my Extra Tuff rubber boats, and “harvest” the waste-water. The sixty-or-so buckets will, in June, July, and August, are used to wet down the garden plants and the compost. (I also bucket the muck, which also goes into the garden.) Least you think that this is gross, I do this well before the temperatures climb.
We have occasionally ran dry. We used to drive our truck to a nearby creek, where we filled 25-or-so five gallon buckets. To counter this, and our having to heat and haul pumped water to the horses, we put two Mat Maid tanks (the brethren and the cistern) in our kitchen addition. We still have to take water to the horses in the winter; however, we’ve eliminated creek-related fill-up. We also put gutters on our out buildings, and have recycled plastic garbage cans under them. This too, is garden water.
Pete and I are often asked, why don’t you
instead put your time and energy into getting on-the-grid? Our response
is that we enjoy the challenges that complement this particular way of
life. And, as importantly, we feel good about the fact that we are reducing
our reliance on fossil fuels which are a non-renewable resource.
Water Management