Water-Witchin' and Well Drilling

Back in Oct. '09, we ran dry. I may be repeating myself again, but we have been in a drought in our particular area for going on 8 years. Little by little, it has been getting harder and harder to reach drinkable water, let alone water my gardens. Finally, we had a dry well.
Our dear friend and neighbor is from the 'old school'. He learned many of the old timers trades and has been doing his best to pass his knowledge onto all of his friends and family. Gene is a bachelor farmer who can teach all of us a thing or two about survival...real survival, not like the kind you see fabricated on TV.

He is holding a sapling twig with the roots on, waiting for some action. My son and grandson are learning what Gene had taught me centuries ago, and that is, how to witch for water.

The twig he is lightly holding takes on a mind of its own when water is located beneath the surface. It will begin to bounce up and down and for each bounce, it measures a foot in depth that the water flows. Gene consistently got 31 feet. I got 33 feet and a second vein at 50 feet. My grandson got 31. Once the stick stops bouncing is the depth. Hold the stick still and it will begin to bounce again measuring the next vein of water beneath the first measurement.

My grandson was just in awe. Unbelievable, he says, Ya Right.!!, in disbelief. His daddy thought this was complete nonsense, but then he is more of a scientist than believer. I guess it wasn't technical enough my youngin'.

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This is the drilling rig that had to come in and test our theory. Besides, we needed water a week already. I have to admit, I was not skeptical, but curious as to how accurate our old time predictions actually were.
The first vein was hit at '32' feet, that's right, 32 feet....right in between our bobs for water. Deeper drilling had to be done, however, as the first vein was not only too shallow for state regulations, but the water was full of silt.
It was quite interesting watching this slow process as they had to eventually go through hardpan before hitting drinkable water. That drinkable water was hit at '49' feet. That's right, one foot off my depth of 50 ft.

The drill was then fit with the proper pipes and drains, hooked up to a hose for 24 hours to drain the remaining sand from the water that we soon would be drinking. Another day later, trenching was done from the pipe to the house, and hooked up to the new waterpump in the basement.
We have a lot of iron in our groundwater so we had to invest in a water softener that removed the iron through a salt and filter system...it works great, we have more water pressure than any of the 30 yrs. we have lived here, and the water is so good. They say you know a good drink of water if it doesn't taste like anything. Well, we have it then because our water is wonderful to drink, soft to shower under and kind to my laundry. And, ta'da', this year I won't have to call the fire dept. to fill the kids big pool and I will have enough water to water all three of the gardens and all of the flower beds without the worry of running the well dry. Now let's just hope we don't have another 8 yrs. drought. A country gal couldn't ask for anything more than that.

God Bless Your Weekend.........drink lots of water......it's good for you