Well when I woke up this morn, the day was crisp and cold. Lots of blue sky, and ice on standing water. It was too early to start milking, and the small child was still fast asleep. So I ran the 4 wheeler down to the pond and brought the big pump up to the cabin.
It didn't take long to get it apart. A socket wrench, a couple of 14 millimeter wrenches, a screwdriver, a 17 millimeter socket, and a little ingenuity... and there we have it. It appears the only problem was a very large o-ring that is supposed to seat behind the primary impeller cover. The o-ring was sagging out of it's groove.
Put everything back together, and time to milk. Get that hour long chore out of the way, run the wakened child down to Gramma's and re-install the big daddy pump. Put a new ball valve behind the leaking one and fire it up.
Zoom the 4-wheeler back to the cabin and see water spraying before I get there. It's working! Water pumps more than 10 gallons a minute right up to the bench. Yeah! I only pumped 150 gallons and shut it down. That'll have to be the limit until we re-dig the pond that seems to have altered over the winter. Maybe an earthquake jarred the spring sidewise or something. We'll see.
Then I finished the day's cheddar and got it in the press before trimming all the sheep's feet, and hacking back a couple pairs of horns growing inward. And now I get to rest for a bit before the evening milking. Woohoo!