Farm life. For this mostly city girl, there’s been quite a lot of learning going on the last nine months. I’ve learned to recognize the call of several different birds by sound. I’ve learned to pick up the cat dishes at dusk to keep the strays and other nocturnal critters off the back porch at night. I’ve learned who to call for pest extermination. Who NOT to call for handyman services. I’ve learned how to turn off the gas to the house, reset the regulator, and relight everything. I’ve learned how to mix the gas and oil for a two-stroke engine and how to change the reels on a gas trimmer. I’ve learned about numerous bugs, snakes, and varmints and how to keep them at bay. I can identify quite a number of trees, plants, and flowers. I’m feeling pretty accomplished over here.

This house had a sweet water well dug before I was born. That all changed when they capped three wells up the holler behind the barn in the late ’50s. Somehow the aquifer was fractured and the water has been briny ever since. In the early ’60s, a cistern was built with an elaborate filtration system to catch the rainwater off the roof of the cellar house and that was the source of drinking water here on the farm. That is, up until my return last August. I discovered the water flow from the cistern was reduced to barely a trickle. My aunt had been boiling it and drinking it anyway, just as it’s been done for years. I have no idea when the filter was cleaned nor have I any idea when some bleach was poured into the reservoir. When I got here, there was cistern water in the fridge that was actually moldy so that was the last of that. I bought bottled water until I gathered about ten gallon jugs and now I fill up at a friend’s house when I’m in town. You learn to adjust when you live alone.

One thing I was always told was to protect our well with everything I had. While we don’t drink from it, we do bathe, wash clothes, and do dishes with it. It is vitally important. The other day, I was doing some deep cleaning. The water here has a lot of iron in it so the tub and toilet turn red after a while. There is a powdered product called iron out that I use in the tub and toilet to remove the rust stains every six months or so. It was time. I turned on the hot water in the tub, put in the plug, and walked away to answer the phone. I promptly forgot the water was running. About 45 minutes later I went into the bathroom and was facing a tub full of black water. Air was coming out of the faucet with spurts of equally black water. OMGosh! My heart sank. I ran out to the cellar house and, thankfully, the pump was still running and not seized or burned up. I pulled the plug from the wall to give the pump a rest. I went to the porch and sat down to collect my thoughts.

What had just happened? I ran the well dry, that’s what happened. For the first time that I knew of, the hot water tank emptied and the water dipped below the foot valve down in the well. So, what do you do when something happens that has never happened before? Why, you Google it, of course! Between Google and YouTube, I’m becoming quite a farm girl! I was somewhat reassured by what I read online. As long as I hadn’t burned up the pump, and we aren’t in a drought (it was raining buckets when I wrote this last night), the cavity where the foot valve sits deep in the well should refill. How long that takes depends on the well’s production rate.

Thankfully, right about then I heard the crunch of tires on the gravel driveway and a much more knowledgeable friend pulled up. I told him what I had done. He assured me I did everything right (thank you, Google) and we decided to give it a couple hours to refill and see where we were. He wasn’t sure if we might have to prime the well. Turns out, we did not. We plugged in the pump, it whirred to life, and within a very short time, I could hear the timbre of the sound change indicating it was indeed pumping water. Once the dark water that represented the sediment in the bottom of the hot water heater and some air came through the pipes, the system was good to go and I breathed an audible sigh of relief.

Another crisis averted. Another lesson learned. Don’t walk away with the water running or the tea kettle on (ok, I bought a whistling one so that would never happen!) Growing old is not for sissies. Turns out, neither is farm life! Even with mistakes and do overs, I feel pretty good about all I’ve learned while living here. ❤️

“You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”
‭‭John‬ ‭14:14‬ ‭NIV‬