America's Dirtiest Jobs

April 3, 2010

April has arrived, although with the cold weather you would not know it, and it is time for some spring cleaning of the site. The first major job to tackle was the cleaning of the flow form system which is an integral part of our water supply throughout the landscape. It begins at the high point of the site with a large 8 foot deep wine barrel suspended in a basin to allow for overflow. This excess water from the basin spirals down the slope of the hillside and cascades through several concrete flow form basins which are shallow pools designed to circulate and aerate the water. From the flow forms it enters a stream which carries it to the ponds. Part of the water is diverted from the stream to a large central oasis in the middle of the courtyard and becomes part of the main water feature. Unfortunately algae has overtaken the ponds and flow forms preventing them from working. Call in the HazMat team and remove it.

Our plan of attack was to rake out as much of the loose algae as we could. No matter how much force we used this stuff was stubborn and would not release its grip on the basins and flow forms. Not letting it have the upper-hand we pulled out the pressure washer and blasted it with a few thousand pounds of water pressure. We outfitted ourselves in the attractive yellow plastic construction rain gear and went to work. Good thing because as you were blasting the side of the pools the water pressure was so intense the spray came back on you. As I slaved away on the basin, Roby was scoping out the wine barrel and discovered the ladder on the side. Being a boy he had to climb it. Inside he discovered a crystal clear 8 foot deep pool of water. He envisioned a hot summer day basking in a floaty inner tube. Just like Petticoat Junction!!

Summoning him back down, it was his turn to fight the algae. We worked our way through the flow forms but it was definitely taking longer than anticipated. We had to recruit Cuatro to help us. After five hours we had barely made a dent but it was quitting time. We had hoped Cuatro would get it finished while we took our two day Off Grid Solar Class but he decided to leave the dirtiest job for us.

The rain has not stopped for four days straight and it is freezing cold on top of it. In fact we had snow at the 800 foot level a bit too close for comfort. Begrudgingly we put back on our rain gear and headed out to clean the 40' diameter, 3' deep main water feature. We placed the sub-pump in the fountain to remove the water so we could clean out the debris and dirt that had accumulated on the bottom. Unfortunately the pump was not powerful enough to remove the silt along with the water nor did it get all the water out. Due to the limited capability of the pump we were faced with a dilemma. How were we going to get the muck out of the fountain. There was no bottom drain nor was it level so we had high and low spots. This prevented us from separating the mud from the water. We could not allow it to sit and dry out because it was raining and overcast. Plus the flow forms kept sending water into the fountain continuously. So our only option was to squeegee the liquidy black stinky muck to the high spots and then shovel it out into a wheelbarrow. Although good in theory it was only marginally successful. First it was like slop so the majority of it sloshed off the shovel back onto us. If we managed to keep any of it on the shovel we had to lift it above our head because we were down in the fountain several feet below the wheelbarrow so most of it ended up on the deck. After several attempts we eventually got into a rhythm and figured out how to sling it into the wheelbarrow. The next fun part was trying to move the wheelbarrow and dump its contents. Roby did a good job of staying steady except when he found the hole in the sidewalk catching the front tire proceeding to dump the slimmy dark goop all over the concrete deck. We should have been on a Laurel and Hardy episode.

Although we were getting good exercise we did not seem to be getting anywhere. Despite filling five wheelbarrows full of this crap the fountain still looked like the black lagoon. The continual water supply trickling in prevented us from stopping the dirt from commingling with the water. After four hours of doing our best to get it reasonably clean, we decided to give up and proceeded to fill the fountain with water and call it a day!!