Ed Sitko

Not sure that I'm in the correct forum category but here we go ...

We have plans to build a garage 28' x 32' right next to our house.  Within the footprint for the garage is an abandoned hand dug well.  The well currently is topped with a removable 4" thick square of concrete.  It appears to be brick/rock lined then mortared.  It's 20' deep by 4' across with the static water level at about 15' (i.e. it has a consistent water depth of 15').  

Our initial thoughts were to: a) fill the well in and be done with it or b) pave it over with a manhole access with the intent of using the water for whatever later.

Recently we came upon the idea of using the water column as a kind of geothermal heat source for heating/cooling the garage or perhaps only a conditioned room in the garage.  I've inter-webbed and found references to using a well as an open loop "standing column" in combination with a water pump/heat exchanger.  All of the references I found talk about a well or wells hundreds of feet deep.

Has anyone experience or thoughts on using a hand dug well as a ground source for a heating/cooling system in this way?

Thank you in advance.

Just labored breathing.  No watery eyes, no cough, no teeth grinding -- all things the vet said to watch for.  When she took his temp it was in the normal range.

Piggy did eat twice as much as the day before.  Still a very small amount.  He did drink what seemed like gallons from the garden hose.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Redhawk,

We started with a three day regiment of banamine and penicillin.  If this is Pneumonia should the penicillin have cleared it up?

This is our third year raising hogs on this property.  They're now on a piece of ground that was hog paddock two years ago.  They have wallows in the shade from an "artificial" creek caused by the neighbors poorly maintained irrigation.  The neighbor's loss, piggy's gain.  Also I replenish wallows daily that are unshaded.  I have several large bowls, actually shallow horse troughs, that are dumped and refilled daily.  Then finally I have a "sow bowl" automatic waterer (shaded) that's plumbed to the well.

This has been our hottest, longest hottest year since we've been growing hogs.  

I gotta move the hog paddock to a different piece of ground next year.  I'm thinking a piece of ground east of a tree belt that provides nice morning sun but a lot of shade mid to late afternoon.  I'll loose the artificial creek but they'll have nice protection from the afternoon sun and I can still do all of the other water access.

Slightly different tangent:  Piggy has been struggling now for 7 days.  He's eating some, drinking some.  But still has somewhat labored breathing.  He gets up and walks a bit. Eats some then plops down exhausted.  How long do we wait this out to see if he gets better?  

Piggy is still hanging in there.  Looking somewhat better.  I have been able to get him to drink more from the garden hose and he has taken a small but increasing amounts of food (yogurt, pumpkin, fruit and oil.)  He seems to understand that I'm trying to help him.  

Wishing this heat wave would break.  

We have a large black hog that's probably around 125 pounds that has been lethargic for about four days now. The little guy is not interested in food but he accepted some water from the garden hose today.  We had the vet out and the hog has had a three day course of banamine and penicillin.  But again, as of today is eating little, is drinking little water and is showing signs of distress (somewhat labored breathing as if in pain.)  He has passed very dry and hard stools.  The vet ran blood work that apparently confirms the heat stress theory.

I have him isolated from the other hogs where he has shade, plenty of water and free choice food.  I've offered him fresh green grass, yogurt, pumpkin, etc,  We thought it best to keep him off his usual bagged dry feed until we signs of improvement.

We did have a smaller hog die just the week before from similar symptoms although it happened in a matter of hours not days.

We have had an unusual streak of days in the mid 90s.  The hogs (7 now) are on bagged organic feed.  They have a quarter acre fenced paddock with plenty of shade.  They have free access to an automatic waterer, large tubs of water that I change several times a day and also an artificial creek that they have wallowed out.  The otherwise healthy 6 hogs are thriving and showing no signs of illness or distress.

Our "hog" vet is out of town and the backup vet is making a best effort but I wanted to check with other hog growers on what we might try to help the little guy recover.  

I have a beautiful mature Black locust tree in my backyard.



Near it's base dozens of volunteers have sprouted!



Will these volunteers survive being transplanted?  I'd like to start of grove of these guys.

zed


edited to fix pictures

Smoked cheeses ... what an awesome idea.  I'll have to try that.

Thomas, hat's off to your dedication to the task at hand regardless of conditions and/or concern for your personal safety!    That was quite the arctic blast that we experienced (I'm in the Bitterroot.)

I applewood smoked four broilers on my back deck in 12 degree weather with winds gusting to 30 mph.  I couldn't wait to try out the apple/plum wood lump charcoal that I had made from trimming taken from our heritage orchard.  The chicken by the way was awesome.  

Has anyone tried attacking it with a propane weed burner? I haven't. I'm just curious.

Jocelyn Campbell wrote:At the surgeon's office, I noticed the official diagnosis is cervical stenosis and radiculopathy.

I agree with Paul that the surgeon was awesome to talk with yesterday. He was mostly amused by Paul talking about how in the surgery the "throaty bits" are moved aside. He couldn't stop chuckling about "throaty bits."

The surgery is called anterior cervical discectomy and fusion. They'd basically replace his blown disc with a cadaver bone.

I said, 'Paul, you'd be a zombie!'

He said, 'no; a zombie hybrid!'

Yawn. Zombies have become mainstream -> http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies.htm



full disclosure: Just being tongue in cheek. Still pulling for you big guy