Oh, well...

Here in the country, most people rely on wells for their water.  The well at our house was here long before we moved in, and has served us flawlessly. A few months back the pressure tank needed to be replaced, and the plumber told me he thought our well pump was on it's way out.  A few weeks back our water pressure, (never all that great) got worse, and Chris went down in the basement to see what he could see.  The pressure tank was running non stop, trying to give us enough water, but clearly, the pump was not doing it's job.  Normally this would be an expensive but fairly simple fix, especially in the summer (we were glad it was not January, with feet of snow and ice outside!)  The plumbers came on a Monday a few weeks ago. The plan was to pull the pump up from the bottom of the well, and replace it with a nice, new one.  I had to go to an appointment, and when I came back I was surprised to see the plumbers truck still here.  I went out to see Chris and three plumbers, all standing around the well, scratching their heads. The mood was grim.  It turns out that due to some seismic shift, the pump was stuck fast.  They had been able to pull up up about 15 feet from the bottom, and there it stayed. It could not be moved up or down.  "What do we do to fix it?" Chris asked. "You need a new well," was the unwelcome reply. They were kind enough to rig up a long pipe that ran from the well, across the pasture and into the basement. The old, tired pump kept on working (thank heavens) and we had water. But it was a little stressful, knowing things could all go south at any moment.

 The plumber recommended someone to come out and take a look.  A few days later a well digger came, and agreed, there was nothing to be done except dig a new (expensive!) well.  It seemed an awful shame, but we had little choice.  We do enjoy having running water, after all. 

The next week, we locked all the stock up and opened the pasture gate. Two huge trucks came in.
One was the well digging rig.

The piglets were astonished by these new developments, so close to their paddock, and ran and grunted and ran some more, until they got tired and took a nap in the shade. Every once in a while they would come and stare at the ruckus, looking incredulous. I had to turn off the electric fences while all this was going on, and I was constantly on edge, worried the pigs would make a run for it and never be seen again.

The donkey and goats, locked in their little room, stared out with great interest. 

All day long, the digger rumbled and banged, going through the ledge one slow foot at a time.

 Since they charge by the foot, I was rooting for water at 50, but my wishes went unfulfilled. I took chocolate chip cookies out to the crew.  It was so loud we couldn't really talk, but with some yelling and gestures, I found out they were down nearly 200 feet and had water, but not enough.  Then they had an equipment problem and left for the weekend.  The huge digger stayed behind, startling me with its looming bulk each time I glanced out to the pasture.  They also left chip wrappers, cigarette butts and empty soda bottles in their wake. I was not amused. 

They were supposed to be here before 8 on Monday, but showed up mid-day, and dug some more.  At 240 feet they had 6 gallons of water a minute.  Satisfied, they packed up their machines and left. The plumber was supposed to come the next day to put in a new pump and switch us over.  He called late in the day, "I'm in kind of a mess. Can you wait until Monday?"  Since the old well pump was mercifully plugging along, I agreed.  I don't groom dogs here on most Monday's, and it would easier to do without water while they fixed things.  Except, I forgot that I actually was grooming that day, since I had planned to take the 4th off for Independence Day.  

Monday morning, at 7:30 sharp, the plumbers arrived, bringing a backhoe and a van into the pasture. By this point I'd given up locking the hoof stock up. They were bored by the whole thing and pretty much ignored the work crews.  Except Abraham, who supervised rather closely. And made friends.

I had a dog in the tub when they told me it was time to shut the water off. I begged for a 10 minutes delay, and was able to get him washed and rinsed in the nick of time. 

They dug a deep trench to bury the pipes below the frost line, and then hooked the new pump up to the new well. The plumbers left, the backhoe guy went back to work. 

He did quite a nice job burying all the rock dust from the well diggers, and smoothing things out. Until he hit the brand new well with his machine and smashed the top, damaging the head of the well, too.  "I'll have that taken care of," he said.  I'm still waiting. 

Meanwhile, the next step of the process was rather alarming.  We were instructed to go buy a gallon of Clorox bleach, and DUMP IT INTO THE WELL.  Now, if anything seems more counter-intuitive than dumping bleach into your drinking water, I'm not quite sure what it might be.  But we followed their instructions.  Then we were to run the garden hose into the well, until we could smell the bleach in the water. This took a long, long time.  Next, we were to let the bleach sit 24 hours, then run the hose until the bleach smell was gone.  This, too, took a long, long time.  It felt like a sin to waste all that precious water, too.  

Now we have two wells. One working, one not.  Our water is clear and the pressure is a bit better.  And hopefully we will never have to go through this again.  Because it was not a lot of fun. But I keep reminding myself how lucky we are to have clean, fresh water and Chris keeps cheerfully reminding me that at our age, this well and pump should long outlive us!.