Thirsty pigs!

The big freeze continues here at Rock HQ, minus 7 last night, and the spring that serves as our water supply for the animals is solid ice. We have a fairly complicated water supply here, the cottage is served by a bore hole which is below the level of the cottage so the water is pumped up to a reservoir and then gravity gives it enough pressure to feed into the house. It was this pump and reservoir system that froze meaning no water at HQ for three days. Our friend and electrician brought us over a barrel of fresh water which lasted us until the pipes thawed.

The animals and garden are supplied from a spring and stream system which we put together collecting 800 gallons in three separate tanks. It would have been 1000 gallons but if you trawl the archive you will find a tale where Ben jumped out of the way of a 500 gallon tank when we tried to move it and as we are on a steep hill it rolled until it met the landrover putting a hole in it at the 310 gallon mark. The water runs along various pipes to a motley collection of taps and thus the little animals get their supply.

As its all solid they are all on short rations supplied by buckets from the well, yes there is a well in addition to all the other water outlets. The well was dug just before the borehole but put in totally the wrong place and could not be connected to the cottage. Hence the borehole.Patches let me know how thirsty she was this morning by running around with an empty bucket in her mouth, the other bucket was solid ice. I dutifully returned to Rock HQ for fresh supplies which were gratefully received. In fact she was so thirsty she ignored her food and dived straight in to the clean bucketful.