vertically challenged

I’ve become resigned to the fact that there’s nothing that we can reasonably do to defrost our water pipes ourselves. Too many experienced people have agreed that they’re probably either frozen under the driveway or *gag* they’ve burst somewhere. We won’t know that until things warm up more. If it’s a burst pipe, we’ll know because the pump will run continuously, spurting water into the ground. Awesome.

So far, with the frost-free spigot still available, it hasn’t been as awful as I’d pictured. You don’t want the potty details, I’m sure. Shoot me a note if you do and I’ll be happy to describe them for you. Suffice it to say that with conservation, things are livable.

It’s about 200 feet from our house to the spigot. Not a pleasant distance to hand-carry 5-gallon buckets full of water. Rather, I’ve worn a path through the snow with the 4-wheeler, and hauling water takes less than 5 minutes a crack. My back is also still viable.

It sure makes one appreciate what our ancestors lived through. We could theoretically still use that old outhouse that I’m planning to turn into a chicken coop.

Nuh-uh. Talk about your frozen plumbing. Everything would freeze before it hit the ground. I mean everything.

Water, plumbing, outhouse, chicken coop…artfully steering away from potty talk and bringing me around to the reason for the post…nipples!

The original poultry nipples that I installed are drippy. Not due to the installation. They just tend to drip from the ends. And as I discovered, they also freeze up if the temperature gets down to say -20.

Mommerz, a blogging friend, suggested horizontal versions of the things. From what other experienced poultry people have suggested, the horizontal whatchamacallitz don’t freeze because they’re spring-loaded rather than gravity-fed.

Order placed, product received and installed. They seem wonderful. My one hesitation was whether to remove the vertical nipples. Decided against that. Screwing around with patching holes in a $40 experiment seemed un-smart.

I’ll keep the originals in place for now and hang the bucket at a convenient height for the chickens to drink from the new ones. If the verticals drip, I’ll just squeeze a snootful of hot glue in the ends and decommission them altogether.