The leak person arrived pretty quickly to help with our little problem. It was all a bit trying as I was out in the field breaking the bag over an emerging cria’s head as his van arrived. Then I had no clue where the meter was and Chas was out doing mobiles. Eventually he found it buried in a thicket of stinging nettles and it was going round like the clappers. He had this metal stick with a wooden knob on the end, stuck the stick in the ground, put his ear to the end and tracked the water. There was a stop tap several feet down a few yards from the meter (we had no idea it was there) where the water Ts off into the barn and all the animal drinkers in the fields. When he turned that off the water to the house was restored, elsewhere nothing. His best guess was that that’s where the leak was.
Chas got the digger up from the field and stated to gingerly dig a hole by the stop tap which the leak man said was crap and might fly off at any time. The pipe leading to the barn reared up like a snake – was it the digger or had the pipe detatched itself thus causing the leak. All will be revealed when we get the plumbing bits and put it all together. Meanwhile we have to fill the loo in the barn with water from the rainwater butts and implore the animals not to drink too much.
Two female cria arrived yesterday in a torrential storm. They seem fine this morning. We have sorted out the birth field, sending six cria and their mums into the nursery field to join the others, keeping the two new ones close by and putting four more heavy pregnants in there. We have had 31 cria so far this year with another 21 pregnant females to go.