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snousleThe water situation has not worked out quite as I had hoped. Bill assured me we would have five gallons a minute, which is a lot, from the spring up the hill. We are getting water, but it's just a trickle, and it has recently fallen below our use. We have 5000 gallons stored - about a month's worth - and have only drawn down the highest tank a few inches. But I don't much care for the trend.
The rain will come in about a month and the spring will start flowing harder again. I think a lot of the water is being drawn away by trees, which suck harder on the aquifer on hot days like this. This has been an unprecedentedly dry summer - the reservoir down the hill is nearly empty, and I'm not sure how they will irrigate the grapes without it.
In the meanwhile, I'm putting a fair bit of time into looking at improving the situation. These springs are so marginal that I'm worried about doing anything to our existing feed; Bill excavated a little last year and said he regretted it, since that appears to have reduced the flow. Spring tapping methods talk about digging down uphill of the source, but I'm terrified of punching a hole through whatever structure is bringing the water up, and losing it all for good.
The locations of the springs themselves are inexplicable. They tend to occur immediately below big piles of rocks. I can't find any evidence of clay layers that would drive groundwater to the surface, and the catchment areas that feed them seem very small. The one we're using in particular has a "watershed" of less than an acre - surface runoff from anywhere else would go in a different direction. I sure wish there were a way of peering underground to see what's there.
There are several alternative sources, all of which we could start harvesting within weeks if we HAD to, so it's not like there's a crisis right now. But they are all more difficult than the current source.
One possibility is an ordinary well, at a cost of about $10K. There are opportunities to drill horizontally as well.
There is a substantial spring higher up on the mountain, but the hike up there takes half an hour and it's a real hard slog. There is no road access, and the approach from the neighbor's property above is too hazardous to make hauling things downhill any easier.
There is a wonderful spring right at the bottom of the property, but the water would have to be pumped up and it's several hundred feet from the nearest electricity. I'm not sure how far or how easily an electrical line could be extended down there.
Anyway, I'm glad we've got what we have, since it's delicious and unchlorinated. I consider it among the highest of luxuries. But we hardly have enough to share with a potted plant - just having a couple guests full time at this point would drain us dry inside of a month.
It's one of the adventures of rural life, I guess.
The rain will come in about a month and the spring will start flowing harder again. I think a lot of the water is being drawn away by trees, which suck harder on the aquifer on hot days like this. This has been an unprecedentedly dry summer - the reservoir down the hill is nearly empty, and I'm not sure how they will irrigate the grapes without it.
In the meanwhile, I'm putting a fair bit of time into looking at improving the situation. These springs are so marginal that I'm worried about doing anything to our existing feed; Bill excavated a little last year and said he regretted it, since that appears to have reduced the flow. Spring tapping methods talk about digging down uphill of the source, but I'm terrified of punching a hole through whatever structure is bringing the water up, and losing it all for good.
The locations of the springs themselves are inexplicable. They tend to occur immediately below big piles of rocks. I can't find any evidence of clay layers that would drive groundwater to the surface, and the catchment areas that feed them seem very small. The one we're using in particular has a "watershed" of less than an acre - surface runoff from anywhere else would go in a different direction. I sure wish there were a way of peering underground to see what's there.
There are several alternative sources, all of which we could start harvesting within weeks if we HAD to, so it's not like there's a crisis right now. But they are all more difficult than the current source.
One possibility is an ordinary well, at a cost of about $10K. There are opportunities to drill horizontally as well.
There is a substantial spring higher up on the mountain, but the hike up there takes half an hour and it's a real hard slog. There is no road access, and the approach from the neighbor's property above is too hazardous to make hauling things downhill any easier.
There is a wonderful spring right at the bottom of the property, but the water would have to be pumped up and it's several hundred feet from the nearest electricity. I'm not sure how far or how easily an electrical line could be extended down there.
Anyway, I'm glad we've got what we have, since it's delicious and unchlorinated. I consider it among the highest of luxuries. But we hardly have enough to share with a potted plant - just having a couple guests full time at this point would drain us dry inside of a month.
It's one of the adventures of rural life, I guess.
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