Posts Tagged ‘hydrostatic pressure’
Watching Steps
We now have just enough of a snow blanket to conceal areas where ice has formed from hydrostatic pressure pushing water to the surface. There is a short curve in our North Loop Trail that gets frequent use, and it has become rather precarious as a result.
When surveying the variety of tracks in the paddock, I noticed that the horses are keen about staying off Paddock Lake.
Yesterday morning, I was looking around the mound that protects the area where drain tile from the barn reaches the air. Just beyond that, a broad span of ice builds up from runoff. It is not entirely clear what happened there, but my first thought was to question why the horses would have risked walking on that mound of ice.
It looked like somebody had laid down there. My second perception involved the possibility it was an unintended lay down as a result of a slip. Yikes. Happily, none of the horses showed any sign of injury.
On the other hand, we do have Mia behaving unusually. She doesn’t seem like she is in any pain, but something seems different. She is more distant than usual and becoming more solitary, isolating herself from the others more than normal. We haven’t seen her drinking water recently, but she was eating more normally yesterday. There is no evidence to lead us to believe she isn’t drinking when we’re not around to observe.
Last night, Cyndie went out to check on Mia after dark. With the sky clear, the moonlight was brilliant and Cyndie took a picture of her in the hay field.
The streak of light is a passing car on the road.
We are hoping the warmer weather expected over the next few days will reinvigorate Mia and dispel any concerns about her overall health.
We would welcome a break from the nagging feeling there is something more we should be doing for her.
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Frozen Observations
Getting out of bed on mornings when the temperature outside is below zero and the first order of business involves walking a dog and tending to horses, takes an extra level of oomph that gets harder and harder to muster. Even Asher chose to stay in bed for an extra few minutes this morning after Cyndie opened the door of his crate.
But greet the day we must, and soon we found ourselves plodding along the North Loop trail on the snowless frozen tundra. I don’t know what depth the frost has reached at this point, but not very far beneath our land, the water table is still liquid. Hydrostatic pressure is pushing it up above ground where it freezes in slippery growing mounds on our trail.
Asher had no interest in lingering after the horses were taken care of because the pads of his feet were getting almost as cold as Cyndie’s fingers. The little black pigeon that I have taken to calling “Plucky,” must have been suffering from cold feet, too. After pecking away at the cracked grains beneath where Swings was eating and having spillage from Swings’ mouth shower its feathers, the fearless bird chose to perch on Light’s back.
To a bird’s feet, that must feel like standing on an electric blanket.
Our agenda for the day involves taking Asher up to the lake with us for a single overnight visit in order to meet a contractor tomorrow for a quote on carpentry work, both indoors and out. It’s tricky figuring out what to bring for such a short getaway that will still involve walking a dog in extremely cold temperatures.
We have horse duties covered for tonight and tomorrow morning, but that’s it, so we need to return by dinnertime tomorrow.
Tonight will be a big night for NFL fans as my Minnesota Vikings will be doing battle in Detroit against the Lions in a single-game competition that will determine Division Champion and playoff seeding. It is hard for my tiny mind to perceive that some people will be oblivious to the significance. It’s as if there might be other issues of greater importance in this world.
Not to the 8-year-old boy in me!
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Light Dusting
We received a light dusting of snow overnight that presented an opportunity to test out my thinking of using Cyndie’s battery-powered blower to clear the front steps and stone-covered walkway. Other than needing to endure the god-awful noise of the appliance, it proved to be a nice solution in place of the simple broom I would otherwise have used.
Today, we are looking forward to meeting a new volunteer for This Old Horse who could become an added resource for us to call upon if we are away from home during feeding times.
Other than that, things are pretty quiet around the ranch. Yesterday, while walking Asher around the hay field, the horses made a friendly gesture of approaching us and resuming their grazing close to the fence.
This morning, after the dusting of snow, I came upon fresh evidence that hydrostatic pressure is still pushing water to the surface in places.
I don’t know what to make of the fact we haven’t seen any new wetness in the basement since we cleaned up all the rugs that got soaked. Not that I’m seeking another bout of wet floor down there. That event still bothers me for the lack of clarity about what really occurred.
Our current premise is all conjecture. That doesn’t matter if we don’t experience another occasion of wet basement but it doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling about the integrity of our foundation.
A professional assessment is included on our list of home maintenance issues to be addressed.
Are home inspections something that can be done any season of the year? When I answer that, I’ll better know what level of procrastination I can allow myself on the concern.
I’ve still got plenty of trimmed tree branches to remove from beneath the grove of pines in the north loop of our property. The hinted possibility of accumulating snow in our future puts a fresh priority on completing that task.
Pondering issues such as these is a luxury of things being pretty quiet around here. No complaint from me on that!
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Hydrostatic Pressure
We have a new theory about the water in our basement and I have Cyndie’s brother, Ben to thank for bringing it to my attention. Ben described a situation he experienced where a rug was acting like a sponge to pull moisture out of his basement floor. That could easily apply to the soaked rugs we encountered on our basement floor.
Coincidentally, hours before Ben called I had taken pictures of an interesting phenomenon occurring in the paddocks. Rain that we received around Christmas saturated our predominantly clay soil. I am always amazed in the winter when liquid water gets pushed up to the surface by natural hydrostatic pressure (the pressure exerted by a fluid… due to the force of gravity) and then freezes. It seems counterintuitive to me that there would be liquid water near the surface in the winter.
Well, with the uncharacteristically warm winter we have been having, there seems to be more liquid water than usual.
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The darkened areas are “rivers” of ice that are forming where hydrostatic pressure is pushing water to the surface.
It would not surprise me if the water pressure in the ground around our foundation was pushing its way through the concrete in some way. We aren’t putting any rugs back down for the foreseeable future.
We happen to have a “lift system” to push basement wastewater up to the pipe that drains to our septic tank. After talking with the plumber on the phone, I looked into information on troubleshooting whether that pump was functioning properly. I admit that in the 11 years we have lived here, I’ve barely given that system a thought.
Apparently, it is recommended that an annual inspection be done to avoid major problems. Now we are considering having it checked for its first-in-a-decade inspection… whether it needs it, or not.
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Relative Something 