The Aspiring Farmer Blog

Two people stopped by over the weekend. A friend and a neighbor. Both of them talking about water and how bad it’s getting out there. Our friend was saying how he was out hunting on a farm in a nearby town and the farmer’s well went dry that day. The farmer’s wife was in the yard crying when our friend arrived. Shortly thereafter the farmer returned home. The wife told the farmer that the well went dry. The farmer didn’t believe her, so he turned on the hose. Brown sludge came out and that was it. He didn’t have a back-up plan, his well hadn’t run dry before. And it was only June 30th. Not even July and August, which are typically the hot and dry months.

Our neighbor stopped by to chat about the precautions he’s taking. He runs his house on a 70’ well so that he can get clean water. Go much deeper and there’s black sulphur in the water, which is very difficult to get out. Our house runs on a 230’ well. We have black sulphur in the water and have to purify it using a combination of hydrogen peroxide and a carbon filter. It’s kind of a pain, but better than the alternative, and we have a deeper well. That doesn’t guarantee we won’t run out of water though.

The neighbor was saying that he thinks his 70’ well is about to run dry and then he’ll tap into a secondary well that they had drilled that runs 230’. He’ll just live with the sulphur water until that one runs dry too. After that he has a 5,000 gallon tank that he gets filled by a water company. Costs a few hundred bucks.

When we bought our house the owner said the well had never gone dry. He lived here since 1994 and at one point had a number of animals on the farm and always maintained a large garden. However, the preparations of our neighbor makes me wonder if he was lying.

Not having running water is a scary proposition, and one we aren’t prepared for. We don’t have a secondary well or a holding tank. Our ponds are just about dry. If our well went dry we’d be filling up our portable animal watering tank at a friend’s place down the road who is on city water and also taking showers there. It’s kind of a back-up plan, but nothing like actually having water available on the property.

We’ll be sorting through our options the next couple weeks. Drilling another well isn’t out of the question. I’d rather not have a 5,000 gallon holding tank to manage, but that’s a possibility too.

Have you experienced drought? What was your back-up plan?

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