Pesky 2nd Law of Thermodynamics: Outside Wood Boxes Refurbish Time

As built into the natural order, things decay over time. I believe this is a type or a picture of death, which entered the world through sin:

Rom 6:23 – “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.“

And so, we can learn to see God’s hand in all things, and be reminded of sin and what its due is — death: physical, spiritual and eternal, and then be reminded of Christ Jesus, the only savior from spiritual and eternal death! Thank the Lord for so great a gift! And for designing these things in the physical realm to teach us spiritual realities!

We see lots of decaying things around here, and some end up being beneficial, as in a compost pile. But other things aren’t as helpful as that, and one of those are wood-structures. Through time, they start to fall apart, and recently I went through and refurbished several items around the homestead…

Well Box

We actually did have a well dug on our place not long after arriving. It actually still does push out water, although we need a generator to use it, and it has a lot of, I believe, nitrates or nitrites in it. And so, we stick to our catch water systems.

In order to try to keep the well hose that comes out of the well head from freezing, I built an insulated box to put over it. Well, it’s been a while, and here is where we were with it:

Cats would come and go through the blanket holes; chickens would get in there sometimes too. And so, it was time to reconstruct the box.

Here it is uncovered:

And then disassembled:

Here’s what was underneath. Remember about the chickens? 🙂 (Actually, this is a re-stage of the eggs, because I forgot to take a picture initially, but it was basically like this.)

And then cleaned up, ready for the new box:

Here’s the well box frame. Last time, I had different heights on the ends to allow for water runoff, but with enough of a slant on the ground, I decided to just make it square this time. Also, I shorted dimensions to allow for overlapping the plywood siding at the corners, and also to have the top overlap the side plywood pieces:

I also decided to tack on what was left of the old footer to the new footer to let that rot on the ground instead of the new footer, hopefully buying us a little more time with the new box:

Then, it was caulk the frame before putting on the plywood siding:

And then add the siding:

And the insulation:

Put the box in place, ready to lower down:

And then set it in place over the well head, and caulk the corners, ready for painting:

And then paint it, and then it’s done and ready for hopefully another 10 or 12 years!

Well Hose End Box

Most of the well hose I buried way back when, but we of course needed part of it to stick out of the ground to attach a normal hose for the actual use of it. For that, I also built an insulated box, only just a mini version.

Here is what was left (this is a re-stage too, but it was basically like this, although not quite as cleaned out as here):

And so, here’s little brother — basically the same design:

And painted, and in place:

Generator Box

Once again, here’s what was left:

And the new box. I decided to forego the flat-board insulation I had used last time, to try to help sound proof it. Most if it was gone because the chickens like to peck at it :), and we really don’t need the sound proofing:

Here’s the lid:

And the new box and lid ready to go!

We thank the Lord for granting the resources and know-how to do these types of things! Again, may we learn to see and contemplate God and spiritual things from all the temporal things around us!

— David