Sunday June 22, 2014 Jenner CA.
A hard day tapping springs for water
Since today was a weekend day, I decided to go up into the hills near me and tap some water from some springs that were popping out of the hillside.
I got all my stuff together and loaded it on my little quad runner and headed on up the hill.
This is the spot I was gong to do the work and my quad loaded down with all the stuff I would need.
I decided to do two springs today which meant I had to dig two holes in the hillside where the water was coming out. These springs are small ones, but put them into a pipe and they add up as far as how much water you get.
Here is one of the holes I dug into the hillside with my little pick and shovel, where the spring water was seeping out. I do this with hand tools to keep it small so I don’t need a lot of materials to fill it back up after I put in the pipe. ‘Digging by hand makes sure the hole stays small.
Materials for tapping the springs
This is the hardware I use to tap my springs. I used to use boxes, but they are not sanitary and require a lot of maintenance, so eventually, I developed this method to tap them, which is sanitary. On the left I have a street elbow, which I filed the end down a bit to receive the green strainer that is for a down spout on a house. A piece of two inch pvc pipe whatever length is needed and a coupler with a half inch pipe coming out of it through a reducer bushing. To top that all off is a little stainless steel cover box I fabricated to keep unwanted things out of the system. I glue the strainer end of the pipe, but not the outlet coupler. This is so the coupler can be removed to clean out roots and dirt that may get into the spring.
I could use a flat strainer instead of vertical green down spout strainer, but time has shown that the vertical strainer is harder to plug up, so I stick with the vertical slots.
Here is a unit installed in the ditch I made for it in the hole in the hill where the spring water is coming out. I need a dam now.
Blue clay makes a good dam
I hunted around the area to find some blue clay that is made from the spring water running over the dirt for many years. I made this clay dam with it, with the drain pipe in it, which forms a little dam with a little basin behind it that catches all the spring water coming out of the hillside. I clay it in all around the green strainer, so the water runs right into the drain and doesn’t have a pool of water behind the dam. All the water coming out of the hillside goes down the drain and out. The stainless steel strainer goes over the green strainer and rocks are put on top of that. The rocks are positioned so they form cracks for the water to get to the drain from the edges where it is coming out of the mountain.
Fill it up with rocks
Here I’ve put in some of the rocks over the strainer. I find the rocks around the area I’m working, starting with bigger ones and working to smaller ones to help seal up the top. The last thing I usually do is put a piece of plastic over the rock and seal it up with dirt to make it real sanitary as far as keeping all the baddy type things out of it.
As you can see there isn’t a lot of water coming out of this spring, but put them into a pipe and dump them all into a tank and it adds up.
I still have more work to do on these springs before I put the new water into our tanks.
Worn out
I retuned home around four PM and had a good shower as I was all muddy. I laid down on my cold pack as my back was hurting pretty good and for that matter, my whole body was feeling like it got ran over with a big truck.
Night time kayak at Jenner to look for the lumens
After a bit of a nap, I got something to eat and headed on down to Jenner for an evening kayak. I arrived about six PM and started looking for Steve who said he’d be down there as we were going to see if we could see any lumens after dark.
I paddled up to the east end of Penny island and these terns were resting there. 
No Steve, so I decided to head down to the river’s mouth, as high tide was coming in and I might see something feeding on the fish that come in at that time and maybe Steve was down there?
This was my view as I approached the river’s mouth area. The mouth is open and it’s going to high tide. There are harbor seals and a lot of birds resting on the sandy beach. It’s a bit windy too, but it’s starting to die down a bit.
Some of those harbor seals and birds on the sandy beach at the river’s mouth, with Goat Rock in the background.
Some of the birds resting on the Jetty waiting for the sun to go down.
Sun goes down
I didn’t find Steve down there so I started back up the river as I wanted to eat some berries on Penny Island. I passed these merganser ducks feeding along the shoreline in front of this old shed as the sun was going down.
The sun went down as I was paddling along.
This is my view of Jenner as I was headed up to the east end of the island, from the west end.
Ate some berries at Penny Island
I put my boat ashore on the east end of Penny Island and went ashore to find some berries to eat. I did find some but it was getting dark on me, so they got hard to see.
This is the spot I pulled ashore on Penny Island, just before I put the boat back into the water and ran into Steve.
Waited for the dark
Since it was getting dark, Steve and I paddled back down to the west end of Penny Island and waited for it to get dark enough for the glowing plankton to turn on.
It’s always a wait for it to really get dark enough to see the glowing plankton and the lights from the restaurant and houses help to keep it too light in that area.
Some Lumens were out
We did start to pick up some glowing lumens on the west end of the island and started working our way up the back channel of Penny Island to check it out for glowing stuff.
The lumens seemed to be mostly on the top of the water and not down deep. We looked for fish glowing in the lumens, but did not see any this night. We worked our way up the back channel of the island and on up the south side of the river to Eagle’s landing. There were lumens all the way, but now the tide was staring to go out, which moves a lot of the salt water the lumens live in back out into the ocean.
A flat, calm, perfect night to be out in a boat in the estuary
Did I mention the wind had died down and the water was flat, so it was super nice out and we stayed out until 11:30PM.
I was too tuckered out from the spring work and the night paddle to do my blog last night, so am now just catching up, after another long day of paddling today.