I went to Home Depot the other day.  I was trying to make a siphon to drain off the lake at the end of my driveway and I didn't want to use lung power to draw filthy water into the hose. I wanted a simple hand pump that I could use to draw water up into the hose until the hose was full, and then simply remove the pump and let it drain. Apparently they've never heard of hand pumps at Home Depot...

Rollstone Lake Next year we'll have ducks!

They kept offering me sump pumps and shop vacs despite the fact that I said I was trying to make a siphon.  A siphon requires an artificial vacuum just long enough to fill the hose.  Once this is done the action of the water draining out of the hose will be enough to create a self-maintaining vacuum that will draw water at the other end.  All I wanted was a hand held suction bulb or crank powered pump to draw water into the hose.

The closest they could come was a pump adapter for a drill which might have worked but really wasn't what I wanted.  I ended up buying 20 feet of vinyl tubing and tried priming the siphon by filling the tube at the sink (tricky business).  But the siphon didn't work well and crapped out easily because the tubing was all coily and I couldn't get it to lay flat.  I really need a short section of garden-hose-like tubing.  Very flexible stuff that will mold to whatever surface I lay it down on.

I'll have to go back and get a different type of tubing and try again.

Speaking of Home Depot, they've got a little flooding issue of their own...

Depot Pond No Swimming

This huge puddle looked to be about 6 to 8 inches deep in its deepest spots.  Everybody was driving around it instead of through because it would gush up into the engine compartment if you moved at anything other than a crawl.