Saturday, August 01, 2009, 21:16
Murky Water
For the past couple of months, every once in a while when I drew water for the horses, I thought the water looked a little murky.
Friday night there was no doubt about it. The water was rather murky.
I don't know about other parts of the country, but around, when the water from a well starts to turn a little murky, it means the well is getting down to the bottom.
If it is, in fact, the case that our well is starting to go dry, the problem will gradually get worse over time until the water is so muddy that it is unusable. At that point, it will be time to drill a new well.
I'm not looking forward to it. I told Randy we'd better start saving our pennies. With all of the irrigation that's going on around the countryside, we may have to go very deep to find water. The well we have now is at, I think, about 120 feet. Or at least, it's somewhere between 100 and 120 feet. The high capacity wells for the irrigation are at 500 feet. I am hoping we won't have to go deeper than that to get water.
Between the irrigation and the drought that's been going on for six years, it's probably no wonder that the aquifer is going down. The "experts" say the high capacity wells for the irrigation do not affect water levels above that, but I'm not so sure.
Over the past 15 years, increasing numbers of acres have been irrigated around here. We have had somewhat dry conditions for the past 11 years, and very dry for the past six. Before the drought settled in six years ago, when it was only "somewhat" dry, the well at our church went belly-up and so did the neighbor's well just up the road. Seven or eight years ago when we drilled a new well at the church it was over $4,000. I'm sure it has not gotten any cheaper since then.
In an effort to conserve water, I have begun washing our clothes in five gallon buckets. I swish them around for 10 minutes. Then I let them soak overnight and rinse them in a bucket of water with fabric softener the next day.
I am hoping that if we can go easy on the well, and in the meantime, start getting more rain, then the water level might recover.
Well, one thing about it. Drawing less water will also save money on our electric bill.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 06:44
Hopeful
I am going to remain hopeful that we may possibly get some choke cherries this year.
On the road out to the main road, several choke cherry trees are heavy with cherries that are starting to ripen.
The hopeful part is that we do not get a hail storm to knock them off the trees. And that is somewhat unlikely. Hail storms would imply severe weather which would in turn imply the possibility of more than a few drops of rain at a time, and it seems impossible to get more than a few drops of rain at a time. We have hardly had any thunder and lightning at all this year. Which you can tell by looking at the grass and other plants. Many things that ought to be green are kind of a sickly yellow.
The bigger threat to my hopes of choke cherry jelly, though, is the power company. The trees are underneath the powerline that they are planning to clear out yet this year.
Why they can't leave choke cherries alone is beyond me. Choke cherry trees do not grow tall enough to get up into the powerlines. And not only that, but you can hardly find anything more organic and 'green' than wild fruit. It's there for the little bit of effort it takes to get it. A gift of Nature.
The other aspect of choke cherries is that besides providing me with jelly -- they also provide the fruit-eating birds with something to munch on. But, in the name "progress," food for people and food for birds is something to be destroyed, not preserved.
I'm going to keep my fingers crossed anyway.
LeAnn R. Ralph