Parkersons Mission Experience: Week of September 04, 2009 Activity

Its been another interesting week here in Palmyra.
We have a 30,000 gallon underground tank on the top of the Hill Cumorah. We have 2-50,000 gallon underground tanks in the yard of our offices. We have an acre +/- pond that is used primarily to fill the two tanks and they in turn have a pump the water to the top of the hill. Now you know that it never rains but what it pours so we have 1) a severe algae problem in the pond and 2) the primary pump in the pond quit! Here Mark and John get ready to swim in the swamp like pond to find and recover the pump.

Diving right in no one envied Mark today.

He was able to tie a rope onto the pump. We couldn't even budge it by hand. So we managed to get Elder Murphy and a 4X4 to hook onto the rope and pull it as far as the shore where we still couldn't move it.

I was elected to get the big backhoe so we could tie the rope onto the bucket and lift it out of the pond. Trick was not to let the backhoe enter the pond and to be careful enough to not kill Mark while getting a grip on the pump.

Once hooked on we were able to lift it free of the pond and swing it onto the lawn.

We discovered that it must weigh in excess of 250 lbs. It is a three stage, 10 horsepower pump with a capacity of 250 gallons per minute. Now all we have to do is figure a way to redesign a system to pump water back into the holding tanks cause there is no way we are going to get another pump this size back on the bottom of the pond. More later.....

Its a nasty job but some one's got to do it! Temple President's home has had a serious yellow jacket problem all summer. Several of us have been over to spray but the yellow jackets keep coming back. I got the work order this time and decided to investigate further. I wound up actually pulling the soffit down from the eves to disclose a huge yellow jacket nest. Sprayed it, dusted it, knocked it to the ground and bagged it. Done!! Only got stung in the head 6 times. not to bad considering the number of insects in the air. I don't think they'll be back.

Oh yeah. Its the 4th of September and the birthday girl celebrates another year. She got a little surprise as she had hinted at what she would like before we leave from our mission but you know me, I'd shot that down.