Getting to the bottom of the problem

"Oh, what a fun weekend," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. 

Last winter during a prolonged cold snap, the frost-free water hydrant at the barn kept freezing.

There was nothing I could do about it at the time since the ground was frozen and so was I.

That excuse wasn't working anymore, so yesterday, with the ground softened from the summer rains,

I decided to dig the thing up to try to figure out the problem.
This wasn't my first frost-free fix, so I knew exactly how much fun it wouldn't be.

I didn't have help, but I did have plenty of supervision.

About half-way down, I took a break and borrowed Alan's lead rope to secure the hydrant to the fence.

I had visions of knocking it over and snapping the pipe and trying to cap a geyser 

while Minnie stood there laughing and digging for worms.

Before I crawled back down into the hole, I emptied my boots. Some kind of fun. Don't you just wish you were here?

Eugenia: You're not even half-way to the bottom. Get back to work.

Me: Chicken soup for dinner...now there's a thought. Lucky for you I'll be too tired to cook.

When I finally reached my destination, I didn't find the smoking gun. 

I tested the hydrant and it drained properly, and there was plenty of gravel above, around and below the drain hole.

Had I just dug a three-foot deep hole for naught?

I added more gravel above the drain hole and covered it with a piece of rubber to keep any dirt and sand 

from settling around it and possibly plugging it. 

Since the hydrant had never frozen before in the nine years I'd been using it, 

I suspect the problem had more to do with operator error and an unusually cold winter than the installation.

I'd been using a long hose to fill all the stock tanks and forgot about having a shut-off thing between the hose and the hydrant. 

So when I would turn the hydrant off, all the water in the hose would drain into the bottom of the hole.

Had the shut-off thing been in place, only a little bit of water would have drained and maybe the hydrant wouldn't have froze.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it...until January comes along and it freezes up again.

Meanwhile, I filled in the big hole, took plenty of ibuprofen, and the chore from hell is done. 

Life is good again.