Went to town this morning for the first time in a couple of weeks. Maybe it’s just the season, but more and more I’ve been making the trip less and less.
Call me a hoarder, but I love full buckets, barrels and jugs. I am offended by empty buckets, barrels and jugs. One of my flour buckets went empty day before yesterday, so it was time to restock. I try to keep at least a month’s drinking water* on hand but that really isn’t practical in the winter: I’ve got the jugs, but no place to store them all where they won’t freeze so I do the best I can with what indoor space I have. And all my gasoline comes in five gallons at a time, so I keep that flow as constant as I can. The Jeep is not terribly economical on gas, but I don’t really use it all that much so this system works.
I’ve wanted a spading fork of my own for a couple of years and never got around to acquiring one until this morning, so yay. And yeah, Evan Williams dropped by for a visit. We’ll be chatting this evening.
While at the feed store with D&L I saw something funny…
I’m guessing three things: The backstory here involves irate neighbors. “Good back yard” means “Good back yard fence,” and “trainable” means “not trainable.” The only thing worse than a large impulsive dog is a large, impulsive and violent dog in a neighborhood with other people’s pets.
—
*Ever since a terribly painful health issue two and a half years ago, I no longer consider my well water drinkable except when unavoidable. It’s potable, but only just.
Say hi to Evan for me. You could make T shirts out of those flour sacks.
The flour sacks already have a home. I no sooner loaded them into the truck than L exclaimed, “More dish towels!”
Many years back, my wife made kitchen curtains out of flour sacks. They were quite “country”.
Joel, would a Berkey filter solve your drinking water issues?
feralfae said what I was going to. A Big Berkey sitting on your counter might allow you to drink your well water but you’d have to know what is in it before you spent the money. Unless your welll is very, very, very deep, given your soils anything could be in that water. Would you happen to have the well log so you can see what Stuff/geologic materials your water is coming through/from? because that would give you an idea of the probable mineral components in your water, but of course not the biological ones.
. . . or you can send a sample in for analysis.
I don’t know how or where, but I’ll bet the local “county agent” can tell ya, unless you’d rather not involve the gummint.
Rainwater collection, perhaps combined with some sort of portable filter, would provide a partial solution for drinking water. Also, having a full rain barrel handy might allow Joel the option of bucket-flushing his toilet when he is having well problems.
Back when I first found myself living here alone without regular transportation and so stopped bringing drinking water from town, I got one of those pitchers with disposable Berkey filters. It probably helped some but the filter elements clogged very quickly.
Our well water has been analyzed to a fare-thee-well. It’s virtually devoid of anything toxic; no bacteria, no arsenic, no heavy metals. But the calcium level is tremendous. I forget the actual PPM count but you could practically use what’s left after evaporation as a building material. I have one pot I use exclusively for boiling well water, because I don’t want to ruin the ones I use for cooking. And periodically I chip out the detritus. Never mind the taste, our well water has texture. It’s hell on toilets.
Some neighbors set up an elaborate reverse osmosis filtration system for drinking water, at enormous energy cost and wasting so much water their grey-water pond grew cattails. (Seriously! Apparently the seeds or whatever blew in from the closest open-water creek, which is several miles upwind.) They finally gave it up and started trucking in drinking water, which is how I have regular access to it. 25 cents a gallon, from a machine at the local food store (which tells you how common the problem is here.) 🙂