Water

Proverbs 25:25.
Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land.


As we continue our journey, we are amazed at what we've accomplished, not just physically, but in so many other ways.  I had intended to write an entry over a month ago documenting our exciting moment of digging our water well.  Robert had budgeted carefully (and worked overtime) for the much desired water well to be dug at the beginning of March.  We were both so excited, giddy almost.  As some of you might be aware or not, we've been living off of a little 100 gallon water tank that we have to pump to the trailer for running water.  We originally use to bring the tank to Weatherford to the other house to get water from our own well, which I used very sparingly.  We fortunately found out there is a water filling station in town, which made things a little easier.  We have a much greater appreciation for water and how easily we can waste it without much thought.  My big trips back to Weatherford are to do laundry only and take long showers....smile.  I often think, I hope I never complain about having to do laundry when I get my front loaders here to the little house, because it's been about 8 months of lugging it 60 miles and I'm also very thankful that I have my own machines.  This experience continues to make me appreciate many things we often take for granted and how many people around the world still see running water in their home as a luxury and although we have chosen this journey, it has made me appreciate the blessing of water.

I remember this day, the feelings of anticipation and excitement.  Robert took the morning off to see the well diggers and their equipment at work.  He ended up having to leave before we got the 'thumbs up' of how much water it was going to produce.  He called me from work and said he had heard from the company that they'd gone 200 feet and we were only getting a trickle of water.  Their intensions were to go 160, so they dug really deep and it made us sick to our stomach. According to the well supervisor, this happens  about once in four years to them; and we were the one.  I have a lot of photos of the equipment, which was impressive and HUGE, but I won't post them.

Our water well diggers - two great guys.  The senior one who's been doing this all his life said, he felt like crying, too when I told him my husband felt like crying.

Audrey and I came back from school pick up and she was all dressed up and even though I felt like crying, she saw the mess of the well digging and just thought the clay river looked like fun.  I thought why not let her just have fun.  It really puts things in perspective, although we were greatly disappointed about not having success with the first digging of a water well here, we have so much more to be thankful for.

When I think of our water well experience, I see it as one of our biggest disappointments so far and I marvel at how quickly we were able to get back up on our feet, dust ourselves off and SPRING forward.  BTW, this was created out of the dried pieces of the clay river.

Jack & Audrey Spring 2011

Nothing says spring has arrived like a trip to TSC to look at their stock of chicks.  We saw ducklings and fell in love!  We have four of the cutest ducklings which are now three-four times the size they were when we got them.  They grow extraordinarily fast.  We also have six baby chicks for future egg supply.  We've not had duck eggs, but have heard great things about them, apparently they are a little richer than chicken eggs and also great for baking!

We spent our Spring Break hanging out around the land.  The children and I went on a lot of great hikes in the woods and ended up at the big pond.  This has been an exceptionally dry year and the pond is down about five feet.

As cold as it was one day, it then got into the 90's the day before Spring officially started and Audrey had to jump in and convinced Jack to join her......crazy children!  I think she gets it from her dad - see photos below....smile.

We had the tent up for Spring break week for the children to enjoy.  It was super windy one day and I saw Robert outside taking the tent down and then I saw this.........

What was Sally Fields' trick in The Flying Nun? It doesn't work so well with a 190 lb man. (Robert's written contribution to this blog entry)

 Driven Well -  Robert is now trying to dig his own well, which he had researched when we first bought the land.  His desire for self sufficiency requires that we eventually have a well.  If he's not successful with this method, we'll probably end up having another company come out in the future to dig a well. Because although we're thankful that we can tap into the Co-op local water, we'd love to have our own well, too.

The long metal pole is a well point - the Driven Well method is you dig a hole about 4 ft diameter 3 ft deep and you drive the well point down the center. As you drive deeper, you add 5 ft sections of pipe and you continue to drive it down until you reach water.  This method is used by our military and the Peace Corps to provide water in undeveloped areas. We intend to use this water to supplement our
Co-Op water by routing it to our vegetable gardens and any livestock that we will have.

 We had our water meter installed at the end of our drive last week!  This is exciting because we now get to pipe over 1/2 mile or 1000 yards to the house.  We hope to have this done by the end of the month, but just knowing we have the meter and water on the property, we're content.

I will end on a photo of Robert and me in the jeep last night coming back from a drive up to High Point and seeing the sun set and all the trees starting to leave out - it was a perfect Spring night.