Getting Good At It

Yes, I am getting good at it - testing for blood sugar and setting sprinkler heads. Blood sugar testing is just a routine that is to be done a specific times of the day, when I get up, at 2 PM and 8PM. Setting sprinkler heads requires I read the instructions but I am close to having that memorized.

Blood sugar is installing the test strip into the meter and poking one's finger to get a blood drop. I have learned the blood drop has to be of a certain size or the meter does not get enough blood to do its job. But once you get the test strip loaded up with blood it is only 5 seconds to the answer. Not so with sprinklers.

I am not writing about pop up spray heads, they are simple, subject to grit and snails (small ones that go for the water and get stuck in place). The water pressure is not sufficient to push the snal off. That results in a distorted spray pattern. So you go around and check pop ups for dirt and snails.

The sprinklers I am writing about are the pop gear driven sprinkler heads. They use water pressure to pop up and turn a small turbine. The turbine drives the gear train that rotates the heads around in an arc. They can be set to spray an arc of say 40 degrees up to 360 degrees. And they come with a special tool to set them. Not hard to do, take one's palm and rotate the head counter clock wise (that's to the left for digital people) until it stops - this clears the gear pattern. Then using the palm of one's hand rotate them back to the right (that is clockwise for old generation). Then you insert the tool into the specific hole and turn right or left depending on whether you want to increase the arc or reduce it. Then test to make sure you got the pattern right; it is an inexact process.

I find the very fine sand from our well destroys the turbines or binds up the gear train. The result is the same, the sprinkler pops up but does not rotate. We started with Hunter PGP sprinklers (at $20 a unit) and have worked our way down to Orbit (the high end of Orbit looks and operates exactly like the Hunter and costs $10and the low end costs $5 a unit). I use the high end Orbit, and just reinstall them in the old outer container, that way no hole digging to do.

Tried to soak the old heads in Vinegar and CLR but no joy, the turbine is worn out. They are nice and clean but worthless, not even heavy enough for a paper weight.