Cool Clear Water!

Country living is both the life we have chosen and the life we love. We wouldn’t have it any other way. Sparky and I wake up in the morning and look out the kitchen window to see Mount Elizabeth and we know we are home.

Mt. Lizzie

When we look out from the front porch and see Curlew Lake below us, we know we are home. The hill behind us and the spring fed  grove of trees to the left of our home bring us contentment and a sense of satisfaction.

Looking up to Back of the Beyond!

But….country living is not for the faint of heart. Oh nooo……..definitely  not for folks who obtain their personal happiness on the golf course, at the Condo on the beach or at a modern art museum. And well, sometimes, not often, but rarely, I am envious of you lovely people. We’re a little bit more……ummm…ahem…..well….scratching my head, maybe “resourceful” up here? If we don’t have something, we improvise. If something breaks, we fix it. Our nearest Walmart is 60 miles away. Home Depot? A mere 70 miles. Harding’s, our town hardware store can and will order anything and “we’ll have it for you Wednesday.” So yes, by need or by design, we are resourceful.

Country living means using a Well for our water supply. No treated “city” water for us. When buying country property, the first question asked is “how’s the water?” The second question is how many galleons per minute? We are blessed with an abundance of fresh, pure, mountain cold water. That is, the water is there but getting it out of the ground and into the house is another story.

Uh Oh………………

For example, I present to you our water system. Last week I would have gladly given you our water system! When it worked it was fantastic. Last week? Not so much. Our delicious, icy cold Spring water line ruptured at the end of June. Currently, this is the water supply for our Garden and Orchard.

Line ruptured by the frost free in the Orchard.

Our 330 ft deep well was dug when we bought the house but never connected to the house. Before we left for Germany we connected the well to the house with over 200 ft of pipe.

Line ruptured by the frost free pump from the well.

 

And suddenly on a Friday afternoon before a Holiday weekend, we have no water! Nope. Nada. Nein. Dan juryrigged a system to get water to the house but that was simply a patch and not a cure. Pretty much, if you have a well, then at some point, something will break. Just part of life here.We needed the Well people to come in with their backhoe and experience to get the lines dug out and repaired. And 11 days after our water lines broke, they did indeed show up.

At least the sun was shining! In the dead of winter, this could have been real ugly.

They brought one of these darling little digger things!

Picked up these boulders like they were made of Styrofoam. Why whoever built this place put boulders around the pumps is beyond me. Sparky was the sidewalk superintendent.

The young man on the left did all the hand digging. A fair amount of “grunt” work was involved when the digger was finished.

Here he is standing in the hole in the Orchard hand digging around the lines. Gonna have some muscles on him by the end of the season!

There’s one of those bad boys!

Once it was all dug out, putting in the new line was fairly simple.

New frost free pump at the Barn.

New frost free pump in the Orchard.

And there she blows!!! Once again, we have water!

Isn’t that just the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen? 🙂

Oh….and here’s another great thing about country water. It’s free! Anyway, it’s free after digging the well, connecting it to you house, barn and orchard. Oh, then it’s free after writing a very painful check for extensive repairs. But, this water is the best tasting aqua I have ever drank.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. I hope you enjoy my sharing our life in the country with you as much as I enjoy hearing from all my Journey Girl friends.

Wherever your journey takes you today, I hope you stop and marvel at the miracle of water. Whether bathing, drinking, swimming, sailing, cruising or fishing. Isn’t water just amazing?

Hugs and much love from me. Journey On!

Karen, TJG

Visit me at:

www.thejourneygirl.com