Papa Pump

I thought some of you might be interested in this rather clever piece of green technology, and was reminded to write a post about it as I recently had to replace one of the seals in the pump.

A few years ago as part of our heathland restoration work we reintroduced grazing animals onto Black Down, one (amongst many!) of the issues we needed to address with the cattle was a supply of clean drinking water, the hill is the highest point in Sussex, and above the local reservoir, so even if we had wanted to using mains water would have been impossible without a costly (financially and environmentally) electric pump.

The idea we hit on instead was to use a lost volume pump. These have been around since victorian times, and the papa pump is one of the latest on a similar theme. They use the power of a body of falling water to drive a small percentage of that water up a hill. On Black Down we have loads of natural springs, they form wherever the sandstone meets the clay. This one is the source of the River Wey.

You can’t really tell from the photo, but it is in amongst a lovely glade of aincent beech tree’s. The spring has been contained within a brick cistern, which supplies water to a number of our nieghbours, we decided to use this spring as well as a clean source of water for our cattle.

We built an extra cistern on the front, and then led a drive pipe from this downhill to a chamber which housed the pump.

The metal pipe has about a 4 metre fall before it arrives at the pump chamber.

Inside the chamber sits the pump (on the left below) and a pressure vessel.

Water falling down the length of the metal pipe rushes into the pump, through a valve and provides the impulse to send a short pulse of water through the pressure vessel and into the smaller blue plastic pipe. The drive water then spills out of the chimney in the top of the pump and the cycle starts again sending the next pulse up the pipe. No external source of power is required and the drive water is returned down a seperate pipe back into the stream it would have been in anyway.

The pressure vessel smoothes out the “stroke” of the pump so the water travels evenly up the pipe rather than in a series of pulses.

The top trough the system pumps to is about 1000 metres away from and 100 metres above the pump, pretty impressive I always think. Also, it makes a really satisfying sploshing heartbeat noise as it works, one of the wardens who used to work here always used to tell groups on guided walks that another local lost volume pump was the sound of the heartbeat of the earth, and that stuck with me, I always stop by whenever I am passing, firstly to check it is working, but also to listen to the heartbeat. If you are ever out for a walk on Black Down and are passing Cotchet Farm you could try keeping an ear open for it.

Elderflower Champagne

I have been a bit busy lately, and nearly managed to completely miss the elderflower season. At the weekend I set out to rectify this. The flowers were out very early this year, but there are still a few around that are useable if you look.

I was very proud once when a freind told me she thought the wine I had made was “not completely awfull”. Bearing in mind that this is where the bar is set I always feel much happier serving people some elderflower champagne, I think it tastes really nice. If you get it right it tastes like summer in a bottle, and chilled on a sunny evening with friends it goes down a treat.

There are loads of recipes out there, a quick search on the internet will throw up a whole load which are all broadly similar. The best advice I can give is to actually smell the flowers as you are picking them. The weather, the time of day and the ages of the flowers all seem to make a big difference to how nice (or otherwise) the flowers smell, and this comes across in the finished article.

Here’s what I do. Gather 35 or so nice big elderflower heads. Make sure you leave plenty behind for the local insects on each bush.

You will need a vessel in which to ferment the champagne, a sterilised clean bucket will do if nothing else is available.

Boil 10-12 litres of water and allow to cool in the bucket. Add 2.5 kg granulated white sugar and stir until dissolved. Add the juice and zest from 5 lemons and 1 lime. Add 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar. Give the elderflowers a good shake in the garden to remove the small insects that have hitched a ride and then add these as well. Cover with a clean cloth.

Leave for a couple of days, then check to see if the natural yeasts on the flowers have started a fermentation (you should see bubbles and froth on the surface of the liquid). If for some reason the natural yeast isn’t working add a sachet of general purpose white wine yeast. Leave for 4-5 days to ferment. Then once the fermentation has slightly slowed strain and bottle. Don’t worry about the fact it will be a bit cloudy.

The idea is that the fermentation will finish in the bottle, this gives you the fizz. But, elderflower champagne comes with a warning, ignored at your peril! Depending on the point when you bottle it can be very, very fizzy. I have exploded a number of glass bottles over the years and would recomend caution. By far the safest is a plastic fizzy drink bottle, when the pressure builds up too much you can crack the lid open a bit to release pressure before it splits. If you do choose to use glass bottles make sure they are strong ones and keep one bottled in plastic alongside so you can see when to release the pressure.

It doesn’t keep for more than 3 or 4 months, so wait 5 or 6 weeks for a nice sunny day, chill and then enjoy!