When the Well Runs Dry

So many of you have kindly sent condolences over our situation here--thanks. I will never take running water for granted ever again!

This is the Frio River--or what's left of it--and I'm standing on both banks. Farmer Rick and I were mystified last weekend when a commercial river shuttle dropped off two tubers that looked to be in their 70's at our crossing. I hope someone told them it would be a long, hot, rocky walk back to their car toting those inner tubes!

Compare this with last summer's shot of the same river. When a river gets shallow and warm, fish die, algae grows, bacteria breeds.

Here's a rare glimpse into our dry well, which is basically empty save for a couple of gallons in the bottom. Many of you out in blogland may not even know where your water comes from--you just pay the city each month and it miraculously comes out of your tap when you turn it on.

Some of you may have your own well that's just a teeny pipe that encases a hole bore through hundreds of feet of earth like an iron straw sucking at the water table. If your pump went out you could get one of those old-fashioned hand pumps to draw the water up.

We have a shallow well that was hand dug through limestone by a pioneer pick axe in the 1860's, later encased with concrete. Where that ends there is a dark emptiness--a narrow horizontal cavern--where the water usually flows just like the nearby river it undoubtedly feeds. You see, an aquifer is like a large rock sponge. Some of the holes are as small as your pinkie, and some of them are underground lakes you could swim in.

The hole below the cavern is where the water is usually stored when the spring is flowing. The pioneers would have hauled it up with buckets and ropes over a wood beam, wishing well style. Assuming your bucket held a gallon, that's 8 pounds to haul up and carry to wherever you needed it. At some point the submersible pump was invented and that's what you see going down on the left side. It has to be submersed to run. We've turned ours off.

Think about all the ways we Americans use water: flushing toilets, cleaning house, bathing, cooking, household drinking, washing dishes, doing laundry, washing cars, keeping lawns, gardens, animals alive, recreation if you own a pool. How much would you use if you had to pull every bucket up yourself? What would you do if suddenly you had none?

We are bathing with wet wipes. Since I work from home, I wash my hair only when I know I'm going to be seen, about once a week. We drink and cook from bottled water. Fortunately we have a lot of dishes and clothes. I may soon have to drive to another town to use a laundromat and resort to paper plates. That little puddle is managing to keep our animals watered--so far. We can only hope for rain.

I've begun to realize Life, as we've known it, is pretty luxurious compared to what the pioneers must have experienced. I think about all the people today in third world countries who live on about 3 gallons of water--or less--per person per day and that water might even be as skanky as what's in our river right now.

So, the next time you turn on your faucet be conservative with your use, and remember to be thankful!

Sunday Stills: Water Towers or Grain Silos

We don't exactly have water towers here in my ghost town (or grain silos, either), a place that is ultimately all about cool, clear water--but I hope you'll enjoy this brief history of our water storage through the colorized photos I took today. It's 106 degrees today and I'm drinking lots of water!

The river water is so clear, you can see to the bottom of a 20 foot swimming hole.

In 1868 pioneers dug a ditch (otherwise known as an acequia) eight miles long, diverting water from the river to irrigate 800 acres of farm land. They originally named the town "The Ditch" which prevailed until a post office was opened about seven years later, when it was named after the river: Rio Frio.

The ditch ran for over 100 years. Now it is dry, but locals whose property it crosses must pay the state a water use right. Go figure.

Many of us living on the original plots have hand dug pioneer wells. This is one of my favorites--with a classic wishing well look--since it still has the wood to throw a bucket over. They are all about 40-50 feet deep, through solid limestone, sized just wide enough for a man to swing a pick axe.

Most of the houses built in the 1800's had spring houses. You could say these were private water towers, but also refrigerators. The water was stored on top, and a room was built below where food was kept. The soil is too rocky here for building a cellar, and the water is much cooler than the ground.

Old timers remember playing in them as children, because it was the coolest place around in the days before electricity and air conditioning came to the canyon.

Some folks still use windmills to pump their water. It's a beautiful way to harness the wind. I wish we had one.

This is our well house, with an electric submersible pump. (There's a better photo on this previous post showing the beautiful door). The pioneer hand dug well is behind it, covered with a large iron trap door secured with large rocks and a tangle of vines for good measure. The well service company told me if I liked the way my water tasted, I should never look in the well, as I would likely see hundreds of crickets or the occasional unfortunate squirrel.

Of course, I had to look. It's about a 4 x 4 foot hole through 40 feet of solid rock terminating in a little cavern where the water flows through it. Just like a river.

To see photos of water towers and silos, visit the other photographers at Sunday Stills.

Water, clear as glass

Here's a vertical panorama (stitched together by my camera's software) of my foot three feet under water yesterday before sunset. Such is the quality of water here, both in the river and our pioneer well--a constant 65 degrees and clear as glass. In the daylight the Frio shimmers with a tinge of blue-green like the color of Coke bottles from childhood.

This 4th of July I am thankful for the river, and a life that allows me to visit it daily.