In article , spamersarevile
(spamersarevile) says...

Problem is while there's plenty of water at the lake, there ain't any
200 feet away and that means schlepping maybe 20 watering cans one
at a time to the pump and instead of filling up the hose relatively
quickly, I'd be doing it gradually, over say 1 hour. Won't some/all
of that water simply run back into the lake?

Put a foot valve on the suction, or it will ALL run back into the lake.
T a ball valve into the line next to the foot valve if you need to drain
the line for the winter.

I could maybe get a
cart and lugg more water at one time, but it'd still take 3 or 4 trips
and maybe 20 minutes.

There are self-priming pumps that will suck air until the water gets
there. I don't know how long they run, they are designed to self-prime
at a very low head, and need water in the pump to do their thing.

When I was a kid, we used to prime an irrigation pump with a hand
suction pump. We would just pump like crazy for a few minutes, then
kick the pump on when the water got there. It had a 6" suction on it,
so we were moving a lot of air. It was a diaphragm pump.


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