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Water is an incredibly important part of life. As our drought in west-central Saskatchewan has continued over the last few years, we have had to stretch ourselves a bit and try to find a long-term solution to the water shortage. We’ve dug dugouts in the past, but even with the best dugout, you still rely on the spring run-off and rain to fill it. So we went a different path. We were able to find an underground stream and we had a company bore us a few wells for our different pastures. The water is wonderful. It’s good quality and there is plenty of it.

Patti Anhorn grew up on a grain farm in the Elrose, Saskatchewan area, and while she loved that, it quickly…

Our next challenge was how to get the water out of the ground and into the trough. Gregory did some research and decided that we should try a solar pump system. Due to the availability of supplies and the purchase prices, we ended up buying from RPS, a company in California.

We needed a place to safely mount the solar panels and have an undisturbed area for the controller and all the wires, as well as a way to keep the cows away from the well. After kicking around a few different fencing ideas, Gregory had a unique idea of using materials we already had on the farm. It involved using three sheets of a 14-foot grain bin with a roof to make a shelter to protect the solar-powered equipment.

In the home shop, Gregory built brackets out of angle iron to mount the solar panels to the roof of the bin and then we used the picker truck and the flat deck trailer to haul the bin over to the pasture.

At the pasture, we placed the bin over the well, with the solar panels facing south. We secured the bin by pounding seven-foot long pieces of rebar outfitted with an oversized nut welded to the top, through eyelets that Gregory had bolted to the bottom of the bin sheet.

On the inside of the well house there is plenty of space to do a neat job of securing the wiring. Gregory mounted the control panel to the wall on the inside of the bin.

We kept the drop line from the pump long enough to reach a two-inch waterline that we ran through the top of the bin just under the roof and down to the trough. This enables us to remove the drop line from the waterline and run it out the door to fill a water truck it that is ever needed.

Outside the bin, we created a cradle to hold the waterline as it comes out of the bin and gradually lowers into the trough. The decline makes it to where the water will flow out due to gravity when the pump shuts off, leaving no water in the line to sit there and freeze.

To build the cradle, we pounded in wooden posts and then bolted pieces of 1.5-inch angle iron to the sides to make the posts high enough to hold the cradle. At the top of each angle iron, Gregory welded one-foot pieces of three-inch angle iron. A long piece of two-inch angle iron rests in each three-inch angle iron and the waterline rests on top of the two-inch angle iron. Gregory used UV-resistant zip ties to holds the waterline siting in the cradle.

Instead of using backup batteries, we decided to use a larger trough so that if the day is horribly overcast and the solar pump isn’t able to pump enough, the cows will have between two and three days of water supply. This larger trough also allows the cows to have water even if there is some downtime due to a malfunction of the solar pump or panels.

After we had the first grain bin well house installed, we quickly found more bins from neighbours to be used for our other well houses. Many farmers may find the 14-foot grain bins to be too small for grain storage, but we found them to be just right for a well house.

Heather Eppich is a young former Idaho rancher building a new farm and family with her husband and young son, near Handel, Sask. Contact her at: [email protected]

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