Last week I set out the sprinkler to water the vegetable garden for 45 minutes. I have not NOT watered anything else for weeks. Then I turned on the hose to water the chickens. I heard the phone ring and ran into the house. When I got back to the hose – it was dry. I turned off the spigot, went into the house and turned on the taps. No water.
We have a drilled well, and have never had to worry about our water supply. We had gotten quite smug. Which is not to say we were profligate with our water. After all, I had stopped most of the garden watering. We have never watered a lawn. But we never gave the water supply any thought.
In addition to the drilled well which supplies our domestic water, we have a beautiful stone lined dug well that is 28 feet deep out in back of the house. It currently has about 4 feet of water. There is also a ten foot dug well in front of the house. It is dry. We also have a well up in the field under an apple tree. I used to use that well water for the garden, until . . . until the day a number of years ago when my husband had to climb into the cold wet well and drag up two dead skunks that had managed to squeeze under the stone slab cover, fall in and drown. There was a definite aroma that not only perfumed the air around the well, but the basement where that water went to an outdoor spigot.
Surviving the awfullness of that task, he never wanted to repeat it and in a moment of passion disconnected the pipe from the well to the house. In this drought he rethought the benefits of using that well water and descended into the depths – only 12 feet, to find that it was barely damp – and that the pipe had disintegrated or otherwise disappeared. Oh, well. So to speak.
You want to know what he did with the skunk carcasses?
We buried them under Applejack, the Griffith Buck rose at the head of our drive, where it gloriously and fragrantly greets visitors to the End of the Road.
And yes, water is once again flowing through our taps. But we are being very careful.
Good morning Pat – what a nice way to use up excess skunk! I too am on a well that’s never been dry, but in this time of drought I’m a bit nervous…
Cyndy – Henry is a brave man!
I forgot the hose once this year….now I set the timer and water sparingly as you do. Skunk fertilizer is the ultimate organic solution.
Layanee – No more watering for me this year – except for the containers, and the front garden lettuce. The skunk fertilizer has worked really well.
Up the valley in mid-Vermont from you, and pretty darn worried about our well, as well. Praying that rain comes today, and our pond doesn’t dry up completely!
BTW — I read your blog regularly — check it every morning — even though I have never posted here before. I am sure you have far more fans than you know of.
Now, off to clean the skunk poop off the porch…
Kate – thanks for visiting and for commenting today. As you know, I consider Vermont my second home. I did go to a 2 room schoolhouse in Charlotte in 1947-48 – that must count for a lot.
Like others, I’ve been worrying that this would happen to us soon as it has happened in the past. Rain, rain, please come! In the meantime, enjoy having water again.
I can totally relate to this article. We have a well and it went dry the other year between our kids, animals and plants I though we were going to die…thankful we had a creek nearby until they could find more water.
my goodness that’s sure a worry for a well to go dry. I found a menneonite man that digs wells and he uses maps to figure out where low places are in the soil to get water.Also this nursery uses wells he dug http://www.gardenplantsnursery.com
Water is going to be the BIG issue of this century! That’s what I think.