Homestead mailing list

[<eureka AT hctc.net>]

Our place used to be the town's blacksmith shop in 1860's. 
That structure was presumably torn down and the post 
office was built on the same location in the 40's which is 
now our house now. The well is chiseled through solid 
limestone, karst, and limestone conglomerate and is a neat 
rectangular shaft about 3' x 4' or 4' x 5' wide. The six 
feet or so of the shaft nearer to the top has concrete 
sides, I suppose to keep dirt out. The rock shaft sort of 
ends about 40 feet down and there's some kind of hollow 
pocket or cave beneath it where the water flows 
horizontally, like a river or spring. One nearby pioneer 
well like mine still has the wooden beams to pull the 
water up with a bucket and rope. My guess is the 
blacksmith dug it.

Town wells in the 1900's around here are two-story above 
ground concrete boxes, a door to the spring house and the 
water in a tank above. Some of the old timers told me this 
is how they kept their produce cool in the old days. It's 
possible we could build something over ours attached to 
the well house. Maybe the cool from down in the well would 
would suffice. Or we could try to do a spring house with 
the water above. Does this help to visualize?

--Sage

On Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:12:13 -0700 (PDT)
 bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com> wrote:
> This sounds like a fantsastic place; but I am confused. 
> Did the man with the pick axe dig a forty foot deep 
> hole? what are the other approx. dimensions? And, what is 
> holding up the sides of the hole?  I can't quite 
> visualize what you are describing  .  ...bobford
>
>
> --- On Tue, 6/24/08, eureka AT hctc.net <eureka AT hctc.net> 
> wrote:
>
> > From: eureka AT hctc.net <eureka AT hctc.net>
> > Subject: Re: [Homestead] Does this idea stink?
> > To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
> > Date: Tuesday, June 24, 2008, 2:04 PM
> > No, I'm deathly allergic to fish and shellfish. We live 
> > five minues from a crystal clear river..if I should ever 
> > overcome the problem and be starving to death, I'd get
> > my 
> > fish from there. (I actually enjoy fly fishing).
> >
> > We'd like a place to store winter squash, potatoes, 
> > onions, our home canning jars, etc. Most of the pioneer 
> > homes around here had 'spring houses' for
> > this...square 
> > above ground concrete rooms with the top "floor"
> > being a 
> > container for the water pumped from the well. Our 
> > pioneer 
> > well is outside the pump house with a large ground level 
> > metal plate covering it weighted in place with some 
> > large 
> > stones. The hole is rectangular, about the size it would 
> > take a man with a pick axe to carve, and about 40 feet 
> > deep with water flowing like a river in a sheet across a 
> > deeper pool on the bottom of it. So there is also the 
> > consideration of building something over the well for 
> > cool 
> > storage, maybe attached to the well house like an 
> > addition. The water comes out of the ground here at 65 
> > degrees. Would this be a better solution?
> >
> > --Sage
> >
> > On Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:37:08 -0500
> >   Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com> wrote:
> > > 
> > > On Jun 24, 2008, at 2:34 PM, <eureka AT hctc.net>
> > wrote:
> > > 
> > >> This thing was custom poured, not prefab, probably
> > when
> > >> the house was built. The opening is roughly a 3
> > foot
> > >> square lid about two feet away from the house and
> > about
> > >> six feet from the kitchen door. It's at least
> > six feet
> > >> deep, maybe a 10 foot square. The wall away from
> > the 
> > >>house
> > >> is perpendicular to the ground, but the wall
> > opposite it
> > >> slopes to somewhere under the house. The field
> > line that
> > >> once drained it's former function was clay
> > pipe that
> > >> collapsed (thus, the problem). As a container it
> > appears
> > >> relatively water tight (maybe good for a septic,
> > not 
> > >>good
> > >> for a cellar?). If it leaks, it is minimal as we
> > tested
> > >> our well when all this came to light and they told
> > us
> > >> there was not enough nitrogen in the sample to
> > have been
> > >> contaminated by the septic tank.
> > > 
> > > Do you like to eat fish?
> > > 
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Homestead list and subscription:
> > > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead
> > > Change your homestead list member options:
> > >
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/homestead/eureka%40hctc.net
> > > View the archives at:
> > > https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/homestead
> > > 
> > > 
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Homestead list and subscription:
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead
> > Change your homestead list member options:
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/homestead/bobford79%40yahoo.com
> > View the archives at:
> > https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/homestead
>
>
>      
> _______________________________________________
> Homestead list and subscription:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead
> Change your homestead list member options:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/homestead/eureka%40hctc.net
> View the archives at:
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/homestead