Homestead mailing list

["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT gmail.com>]

 On Dec 3, 2007 8:40 AM, Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com> wrote:
 >
> I put ours at an inside corner of the basement under the kitchen
> where it is freeze-proof and up on concrete blocks which makes it
> much easier to drain of sediment occasionally.
>
 Thankfully, I have city water, but I still have my well. The pressure
tank is in the basement where it can easily be replaced.

All other things aside, I am very lucky to have a producing well. I'm
in an area just south of the Great Mahomet Aquifer (over which Gloria
has her property, so she has all the water she could want).  Here,
just south of the aquifer, we have a few sand spits. Luckily, I have
one. My neighbor who has a big hog operations has a much bigger one.

In years of severe drought (starting in 1988, the year we moved in),
local groundwater is nearly non-existent. Nearly every truck in the
county has a water tank in the bed. During the years that we had a
commercial dairy we had to haul water at least part of the year (and
it was a treat that January night that the moron hired man put
quarters in the Greenview water dispensary right before I positioned
the tube in the water tank -- he didn't die only because 200 gallons
of water dumped on a person tends to paralize her).

I'm more than a little concerned about the next 20 years (after that
I'll likely be dead or gaga), but this water problem could be a
killer. I can mulch and haul enough water for a garden. Farmers are in
deep, deep doodoo because they can't possibly irrigate, and if they
can't, then what?

I'm sure that some solution will arise, but I'm not all sure it will be 
pretty.

Marie

I have no idea how much groundwater is available here now. I used to
have a pond that was really a holding tank to keep water flowing from
above flooding the fields below. It rarely has water these days though
it used to look like a pond. Once the corn starts growing, it sucks up
every bit of groundwater. I think it wouldn't take much drought to end
groundwater here. The ground is heavy and retains water, but it's not
too many years away from a no-crop year. Just a few miles north over
the aquifer, crops will do fine for years. Here, we may be back on
pasture .... not that anyone has much to put on it.

Marie