Bright and early the operator of the trimming and fusing machine arrived on our farm

This is a fascinating machine—it trims the pipe (we have six pipes to trim) then fuses the pipes together in a weld which will never come undone —or so we were told.

Since we had the black pipe stored in the goat corral, the trusty backhoe lifted up one pipe at a time (as needed)

Which was then placed into the fusing machine.  First, the machine trimmed all the rough edges off of the pipe (see the black bits laying on the white box). The digital information stopped the trimming when everything was perfectly smooth and equal.

The pipe was pushed a short way through and the next pipe was placed in the machine to be trimmed to perfection.

Once it was perfect the two pipes were pushed together and heat applied.  It took 9 minutes to fuse the two ends together

The truck was attached to the first pipe to help move the growing pipe stay straight

Until all six pipes were fused together

Then it  was time to move the pipe into the corrals (in preparation to line up to the newly created tile line)

The backhoe moved the pipe little by little.  The goal is to move the pipe under that further corral fence.

Then the pipe had to be straightened out

Once it got straightened out

They started pulling the pipe through the horse corral, into the goat corral, and toward the new ditch/tile line

There!  All set to pull through.

But by this time it was late in the day and everyone was tired, tired, tired.

We begin again Tomorrow.

See you in the morning!

Your friend on a western Colorado farm,

Linda