We have no water. Our well, for some reason, is out of water. Not totally, but it comes in so slow that I can't do a half a load of laundry without stopping 4 times to wait for the water to catch up. Are we in a drought? We were last year, but we have been through worse droughts and we had plenty of water before. Now, we don't. No one around us is using our water supply. Everyone around us has county water. We were going to stay with our well because of how the county screwed us over on getting a tap. Now I'm not so sure if we can.
When the county was going around asking people if they would sign up for county water, (They would get it for free the government was giving them a grant to pay for it.) We signed up. Then a few months later we heard that we were not going to get the water. There wasn't enough people on our road for them to put water on it. Then a few months after that we heard that they were going to put county water around here again. Once again, we signed up. Then there was a rumor going around that the county had to buy new equipment with the money that they got for our leg of the ridge. No water for us. Then out of nowhere, they started to dig the ditch for the water line to come our way. Yea!!! Or so we thought. Come to find out, for some "unknown reason" we weren't signed up for the free tap to the county water. For us to get a tap, we would have to pay $1400. WHAT?????? They used our name so that they could get the money, but they wouldn't give us the free tap? Somethings wrong with that picture!!! When we found out about this we told them we don't need their water. We have a well that has never gone dry. It may have some rust or clay in it. It may be red sometimes. But, at least we had a bounty of water. Now, we do not. We have know idea what happened.
We considered getting a cistern but at that time we thought we had more time to save up the money. A cistern would cost us a lot more money. Money that we don't have now since we took our vacation. (Crap) Once again, we thought we had more time to save. So now we are stuck with no water and no way of building a cistern. We don't really have the money to put in the tap. When we left, we knew that the water was getting kind of slow. But, we thought we still had time to save some money. It's been acting like it for some time. Me and Hubby haven't been on a vacation for a long while and with this, being our anniversary, we thought we would risk it. Well, I guess we lost out on that risk. Now we don't have the money and we don't have water.
I'm not telling you this so that you will feel sorry for us. I know that we could have not taken the vacation and we would have been closer to having the money for the tap. I'm telling you this so that you realize that there are times that you will make a bad decision for your farm. This is just one of those times for us.
So if you start to smell something your way just realize that is a smell of a bad decision.
So until next time,
Small Farm Girl, Aka Smelly.
6 comments:
Something smelly down your way all right and it's not YOU. I would contact your County Commissioner and if you get no satisfaction, then go to your State Representative with documentation of the facts. If you can't get the hookup for free any longer, I'm sure they can offer you a payment plan. When I hooked to our Township water I made yearly payments at an extremely low interest rate until it was paid off. Good Luck! Remember....the squeaky wheel gets the oil!!
Golden....There has been soooo many people complain about the county water it hasn't changed a thing. We've checked into payments and they said no. I'm actually getting away with just a little injustice. A family member gave the water company land to put a water tower on in exchange for putting water to his house free. They agreed. Later they determined that it was too far for them to run water line. My family member had to run over 1/2 mile of water line himself just so he could have water. They never did pay for the land. See what I'm up against. A lot of the govt is crooked around here. Reminds me of the old show The Dukes of Hazard. hehehehe
Wow, that really stinks (no pun intended)! I hope you guys can figure out something! Being without water would not be a fun thing, especially with farm critters.
Hey! I've been reading your blog due to connections with another one I've followed.
I have a fair amount of experience with wells, and if you have no reason to expect that your water table has dropped, which from your description it sounds as though it hasn't (it's still refilling to the pump eventually), and you've seen red color in the water, you may have a mat of iron bacteria clogging the screen slots in the casing.
This can be fixed, and for far cheaper than punching a new well, and possibly even paying the county tap fee.
Get in touch directly, and I'll be happy to help as much as I can from South Carolina.
I am sorry for the water situation. Our well ran out of water this winter, but the snow melt brought it back. I, like you are, got very creative in saving water.
I do have to disagree with you about the vacation being a mistake. My take on it is the vacation gave you the much needed rest, both body and spirit, to deal with the situation. Good luck and positive vibes coming your way.+~+~+~+~+~+
Candy C.....We do have a small cistern that we use to dip water for the animals. Plus we have a pond that they can drink out of. I'm sure lucky about that.
B... Thanks for the advice!!!!
Mary....Thank you Mary. It WAS a nice vacation.
Post a Comment