2007-11-23
water
"We haven't bathed at our house since August" said I, with a grin, to a suitably shocked guest at a gathering yesterday. She wrinkled up her nose, then, tentatively said, "...but you don't smell all that bad..."
Actually, it would have been more precise to have said that our water well, which is only 8 meters in depth, has gone all but dry and we have not had water running through the house pipes since that time.
As far as the bathing part, well, plenty of people have offered use of tubs and showers. We can both shower at our workplaces and at the gym. The real problem comes when flushing the toilet. So we have developed a storage system that includes six 32 gallon rubber cans [there are four of them pictured on the left]. We refill them with a couple of lengths of hose from a neighbor's much deeper drilled well. From the filled drums we extract water by the gallons in jugs. This endeavor means that the new Gould's water pump purchased last spring [see the pix to the right] is not much more than an expensive sculptural piece.
Come the winder rains and snowfall, I'm hoping the groundwater shall adequately recharge itself. If not, then we are going to have to bite the fiscal bullet and have a well drilled for ourselves.
I remain perhaps more philosophical about this than Bruce, having lived in places where running water just was not available. I do get tired, however, of all those igonrant types who ask with a troubling innocent incredulity, "Why aren't you getting water from the city?"
Sub-Urbans! the bane of my existence.
"We haven't bathed at our house since August" said I, with a grin, to a suitably shocked guest at a gathering yesterday. She wrinkled up her nose, then, tentatively said, "...but you don't smell all that bad..."Actually, it would have been more precise to have said that our water well, which is only 8 meters in depth, has gone all but dry and we have not had water running through the house pipes since that time.
As far as the bathing part, well, plenty of people have offered use of tubs and showers. We can both shower at our workplaces and at the gym. The real problem comes when flushing the toilet. So we have developed a storage system that includes six 32 gallon rubber cans [there are four of them pictured on the left]. We refill them with a couple of lengths of hose from a neighbor's much deeper drilled well. From the filled drums we extract water by the gallons in jugs. This endeavor means that the new Gould's water pump purchased last spring [see the pix to the right] is not much more than an expensive sculptural piece.
Come the winder rains and snowfall, I'm hoping the groundwater shall adequately recharge itself. If not, then we are going to have to bite the fiscal bullet and have a well drilled for ourselves.
I remain perhaps more philosophical about this than Bruce, having lived in places where running water just was not available. I do get tired, however, of all those igonrant types who ask with a troubling innocent incredulity, "Why aren't you getting water from the city?"
Sub-Urbans! the bane of my existence.
Labels: drought, water, water tanks, wells
¶ 08:32
