(If You Want Something Done Right Series)
Some 25-30 years ago, I can’t remember anymore, I decided to grow a garden.
I had the space but I needed some tools. I bought a TroyBuilt Horse Tiller. Fairly big and powerful enough to dig down into the packed soil. I had accumulated the necessary hand tools, shovels, rakes and hoes and I was ready.
I picked out a spot about 400 feet from the house, at the bottom of the hill, assuming that that would be where the deepest top soil would have gathered over the millennium(s). While my theory may have been right, I was disappointed to find Ages of Ice had layered sand, gravel and rocks earlier and the black dirt hadn’t quite started piling up just yet. Still, it looked to be the most promising.
I tilled up about 3000 square feet and laid out the rows. After the full moon in May and the oak leaves were the size of a squirrel’s ear and the crickets were chirping I knew it was time to plant, according to my Farmer’s Almanac. Then I noticed deer tracks in the fresh tilled garden. Not a big problem, cut some fence posts and installed a six feet high chicken wire fence. Then I waited. And waited.
Finally, a couple days after a rain things began to happen here and there, a few little green things popped up and the rows began to take shape. I was in business. All was well. Then the rains became less frequent and sporadic. It didn’t rain according to my schedule, that is, when I wanted it. I had to do something.
I needed water and fast.
I went to the local hardware store and bought 8-50 foot hoses, hooked up to my outside hydrant and I was in business. The problem was I had to move the sprinkler every hour or so, meaning I had to be home. It worked fairly well, laying down the water as required and after a good rain I didn’t have to water for a few days. The soil tended to dry out quickly due to the sand but with commercial fertilizer the garden prospered. After a couple years I had to expand, too many things took much space, things like pumpkins, watermelons and cukes needed room to run. I increased the garden size, redid the fence and now I had to water even more when it didn’t rain on my schedule.
I began to get concerned, I was using water from my house well, though it was deep I didn’t want to over tax the pump or water table. I certainly didn’t want to have a shortage or downtime at the house well. A problem was posed, I needed a solution. I knew the cost of a well, I had had two of them installed, by the rule book. Permits, registration and inspection were all in compliance and added on to the time and expense. Woe is me.
Then I began to wonder, maybe I could hand dig a well in the garden. Was that possible? My neighbor and friend was the local well driller, one day when I was in the garden he stopped by with his son. We talked about different things and I asked about the feasibility of a Do-It-Myself project. He asked his son, “How deep is the water here?” Son answered, “Thirteen feet”. He explained what to do and how to do it. It didn’t seem too difficult. Then I asked a couple friends/neighbors if they had any experience, since they had grown up in the neighborhood. They laid out what I had to do and volunteered some of the equipment and offered their technical expertise should I need it.
I laid out my plan in my head: I would need a well point at the bottom, 18 feet of 1 1/4 inch pipe, in 6 foot lengths and a driving cap. I would start the hole with a post hole digger, which I already had. When I couldn’t go any deeper I would switch to an auger, borrowed from a friend,(the auger is similar to a shovel but with a curved blade). When I hit water I’d drive the well point down with a sledge, which I had. It sounded easy enough.
So I started. The soil (dirt locally) was sandy and dry and it wouldn’t hold in the post hole digger. I watered it down and that worked well. I made good progress and in a half hour I was down about 4-5 feet, as far as I could go with the digger. I switched to the auger, the auger blade was about a foot long and had a 4 foot long handle, I put a 6 foot length of well pipe on it and bored down another 4-5 feet. This took a little longer ’cause I had to lift the dirt out on the auger, it was much heavier and I was feeling the affects of the physical effort. When I couldn’t go any deeper I added another 6 feet of the well pipe. Now I was working, occasionally I’d bring up the auger and it wouldn’t have anything on it.
That was a disappointment. All the work and no results. I kept digging (I was in a hole so I kept going, right?). At some point the sand began to get more moist and it was tougher to bring up much on the auger. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, maybe a gusher like in the oil drilling movies of old. Finally I reached the point where I wasn’t able to bring up any sand at all. I lowered my depth finder which was a string with a 20 penny nail on it. The nail came up wet. Good news!
I measured the string, 12 and a ½ feet! Right on schedule. OK, now what do it do? I assembled my well point, about 4 feet long, added my 3 sections of well pipe and lowered it carefully down the hole. I wanted to put the joint where the point connected to the pipe below the water table, in case of an air leak. The top of the well pipe was about 8 feet above the ground, I had to drive the point down about 5-6 feet. Damn. Now I had to stand on about the third step of the ladder and hammer. I put the cap on the pipe to protect the threads and started hammering with the sledge. Slowly, ’cause I couldn’t get much of a swing but little by little the earth was swallowing my well pipe. Finally I was able to stand on the ground and finish the job.
I tested again with my depth finder, 6 feet of the string came up wet. I was a happy guy. I put a borrowed pitcher pump on the well pipe, primed the pump and stroked the pump handle. What a surprise when water came out. I had accomplished the hardest part but still I was not finished.
My well driller friend had given me a couple of old used electric pumps he’d taken out of job sites. The problem now was a lack of electricity. The well was over a 100 feet from the nearest power source. I built a little stand for the pump, ran power from the garage and dug it down about 18 inches in the ground. Did a little plumbing and now I had water in the garden. I still had to use hoses but I could water as necessary.
The used pump worked well for about 25 years or so, last year it finally gave out. I bought a new pump from my buddy, J. Bezos, and it works even better. I don’t worry about droughts and have to remember to turn off the sprinklers when I’m done. I have to drain the pump in the fall to protect it from freezing but that’s about a 15 minute job.
The bees get to enjoy the garden flowers and we’re able to share the vegetables with our neighbors.
I love it when a plan comes together.
The bees get to enjoy the garden flowers and we’re able to share the vegetables with our neighbors.
I love it when a plan comes together.
Bravo!
We got the cobbled together machinery, but where was the wild gunplay where nobody gets hit?
Don’t be talkin’ no foolishness, sucka.
13 feet?
That’s too shallow to have a good basement. 🙁
Relevant:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=alUVf3AEOZI
That is pretty shallow. There is a basically an underground river under us that flows to Lake Michigan. Not sure how deep it is but much more than 13′.
I’m going to guess my water table is about 20 feet down – because that’s the level of the river a block away.
Growing up, we had an active spring on the corner of the property. No idea what the water table was.
My guess is – uphill.
On the farm we had spring water for the house and cows..
Water could get a little scarce in the summer, milking cows uses a lot of water, but now that they are running beef cows it’s fine.
When I go visit, it is so nice not to need a filter for drinking water.
There are a surprising number of springs here for a town called… Saratoga Springs. Water weeps out of the road cuts and freezes into pretty shapes in the winter.
Fun Facts for you easterners: In the newer-settled parts of the country, descriptive place names have fuck-all to do with any actual landmarks. It blew my mind when I moved here and every descriptor was backed up by the appropriate noun. There’s a stone church on Stone Church Road? Madness!
I believe at Pater Dean’s place (near the Red River in North Texas), the water table is about 8 feet down (could be a little more, it’s been awhile).
When I was looking at putting in a well on property we owned outside of Santa Fe for a few years, on Glorieta Mesa, I believe I was told to expect to go down several hundred feet or more.
No clue how deep the water table is here on the east side of Tucson. I’d love a well, but not enough to pay to put one in.
Put a well in (last June) at our property in SW VA, just off the Blue Ridge Pkwy. Fortunately not on the scenic side of it (where my driller told me he had recently punched a 600 ft dry hole); instead we’re in the drainage into the New River though we aren’t that far from the crest, we got 50 gallons per minute at 120 ft. Gotta admit, it is a bit of a mystery where that water is coming from, other than we have springs on the property.
I see Buttercup squash in that picture. That one’s my favorite.
Good fortune to have water so close to surface. I have to ask – what depth would have kept you from digging this well yourself? I was curious how far down the water table is where I live – google says 100 – 500 ft. Definitely not a DIY job.
Here you generally just have to get through the clay, and you’ll find water. The problem is more keeping water out of basements.
Have you tried putting the basement on stilts?
I’m drooling over this. I have to run a 75′ hose to water our garden. Although, in the past 2 years we went from a garden about as big as yours, to one half the size. With the kids gone the two of us can’t keep up a garden that big, and all those friends excited about fresh vegetables never seem to show up at harvest time.
That’s the good old pioneer spirit!
Neat.
Feel free to ship me a batch of Kohlrabi. 🙂
My well in Montana was ~360 feet. Definitely not DIY territory. Fortunately, The previous owners put it in. I would not have spent ten seconds thinking about that piece of land if it had not had a well already in place.
You can only get a gusher of water out of an artesian well, which requires breaking through some form of impermiable layer that’s holding the aquifer back under pressure. Since you dug through just soil and sand, you had no water pressure to force it up as it was quite happy at the level it had sunk to.
Nice! I love hearing about long-term plans and their results. I spent many years bouncing from contract to contract, and thus city to city, so never really had the opportunity to make my own.
Nice write-up of an interesting project.
Crony capitalists want crony capitalism
Oil executives are warning that President Donald Trump’s tariffs and his “drill, baby, drill” message have created uncertainty in energy markets that is already affecting investment.
The executives, shielded by anonymity, bluntly criticized Trump in their responses to a survey conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas from March 12 to March 20.
——-
They also criticized the suggestion by White House advisors such as Peter Navarro that Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda aims to push oil prices down to $50 a barrel to fight inflation.
“The threat of $50 oil prices by the administration has caused our firm to reduce its 2025 and 2026 capital expenditures,” an executive said. ”‘Drill, baby, drill’ does not work with $50 per barrel oil. Rigs will get dropped, employment in the oil industry will decrease, and U.S. oil production will decline as it did during COVID-19.”
They all want price supports and a guaranteed return to go with their cake and ponies.
Anonymous cunts can fuck off.
They are anonymous for a reason. That is some fine horseshit right there.
I guess they long for those days of certainty, where Biden pledged to put them all out of business.
All Biden did was put wildcatters out of business. The big boys just pay extor…settlement money to states like NY and CA and keep doing business. They hate the competition Trump let in during the 2016-2020 period that lowered prices and made us a net oil exporter.
I don’t know about you, but I try not to invest when I’m pretty sure the costs lead to a negative return.
Great article Fourscore. Hand digging a well is not a job for a lazy person, but digging a well to make your future days easier is. The best kind of lazy person finds a better way to do something because it is a currently a PITA.
When it is below 20F I will now say it is colder than a Fourscore’s ass.
The transcript for the Signal group messages relating to the Houthi strike are now online (on Aljazzera and not behind Atlantic’s paywall).
The March 15 post has some potentially time sensitive information. But, I don’t see how any of this is secret stuff.
You didn’t think this was a serious scandal did you?
No. But today was when I saw the transcripts and how overblown the “scandal” is.
Gell-Mann Amnesia is the true pandemic
“…little by little the earth was swallowing my well pipe…”
Hawt.
That’s a lot of work Fourscore.
When I see movies or TV showing someone dig a hole, they always make it look so easy.
Because TV and Movies are about the story and not the logistics of moving earth.
I know that, but the digger never even looks tired.
“What’s your dirt doing in Boss Keene’s ditch?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf3SGGAJWbA
From dedthred:
As someone who graduated from college less than 35 years ago, and who is about to send my son to college next year, imma have to call bullshit.
Tuition in year one is about the same cost of my entire undergraduate education. And by now, at least 1/2 of university systems, primarily the Arts half of the college of arts and sciences, hand out degrees that are worth exactly dick, so no, the benefits are not greater.
I just checked tuition at my alma mater. It’s nearly doubled in real dollars in the last 35 years. Room and board has gone up even more. That said, the stated tuition is often lowered depending on the family’s finances, so the real cost could be lower, but I have a hard time seeing how it is more affordable.
They made it more affordable the same way Obamacare made medical insurance more affordable.
Yes. The markup is huge. There is money to help low income students (that aren’t loans), as well as typical scholarship packages for merit (he only received the latter), and we declined all loans. The bottom dollar price isn’t really the price for anyone except rich kids who are also idiots with parents looking to shuttle their kids out of the house for a 4 year party. But even with most of it covered by scholarship money it’s far more expensive than my undergrad by metric shitloads.
30 credit hours (2 full semesters of classes) was $1874.90 during my first full year at the school I graduated from (not including room and board).
My son’s first year tuition (not including room and board and accounting for scholarships which pay for more than 1/2) will be about 7x that.
There are differences. I went to a large state school, he will be at a small private school. But the cost, even with scholarships, is absurd.
Education has outpaced inflation for decades.
Grants and loans have also outpaced inflation.
Net cost to the student may appear to be lower, but it’s just a shell game to hide the true cost of education.
A friend of mine is opening a new branch of his business. He tells me the parts he anticipated having trouble with are all done and were much easier than he expected. The parts he thought would be easy have turned into a nightmare. The company he is using to open a merchant account with is a problem. He has been through 4 account managers and had to deal with over 90 different people.
He has been working on it for almost two months now. This is a task that should take one person or less and completed in 10 minutes.
Education is the same way. Most of the cost of education is to float a shit-ton of dead wood.
I can’t recall my tuition in law school. I want to say it was $16K/year (this was in the mid-80s). That would be $47K in current, devalued dollars. It is now $77K/year.
I was guesstimating high. Turns out it was more like $10K/year ($30K in current dollarettes). Up about 250% in real dollars.
Trump Pulls Nomination of Elise Stefanik for U.N. to Protect House Majority
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-un-elise-stefanik-withdraw-0d4cd337?st=8evrVd&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
So he’s not completely dumb.
I just checked tuition at my alma mater. It’s nearly doubled in real dollars in the last 35 years.
I recently ran across an article about my alma mater (THE Colorado College 80903). Cost all in for next year- $100k. That’s a shitload of money. Like more than my whole four year cost. Ezekiel Emanuel and his pals can fuck right off.
Trump’s got the jet gassed up and ready to go. He’s certainly learned from his first term.
Detained Tufts Student Moved to Louisiana Despite Judge’s Order’
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/detained-tufts-student-moved-to-louisiana-despite-judges-order-ac8577fb?st=kYbdhF&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I’m thoroughly impressed! (And slightly(?) dejected.) Land ownership was the running theme for me reading this, and the amazing possibilities, and the “perils, pitfalls and promise” that goes with it.
Growing up, we had a good-sized yard, especially for our neighborhood. We had a trampoline in the backyard, joined by a batting cage later on. but I’ve only lived in apartments as an adult. (Even now, my parents’ condo doesn’t have a yard or extra land, though we are right next to the Monon Trail and its ‘wilderness.’)
My own place is certainly a goal, but handy-man talents are remarkably lacking in my skill set. I’ve certainly changed light bulbs. I’m not positive I’ve ever ‘repaired’ anything, but I know I’ve never had the opportunity, or lacking that, the initiative, to undertake such a project.
Well-done and accomplished, sir. In a month, I’ll be two years shy of being *two* score-old!
Speaking of, how did you embed the pics? I’ve got 1.5 articles ready for submission, but I want to add art and captions, when necessary. The first one is a baseball story from my youth, the other an exploration into being the type of person who flutters in-and-out of careers and interests. (I’ve got Hong Kong and Cambodia pics selected for that one, despite being (mostly) unrelated. Art always helps attract eyes and interest.)
Any help you or TPTB can provide is appreciated. Vids I’ve seen are all old-WP and weren’t helpful. (I’m likely missing something remarkably obvious. That tends to happen.)
Welcome to the block editor, my friend.
To be fair, I’ve had relatively little trouble with it. I draft everything on Word, and cut and paste the whole thing in, in one chunk. Works a charm.
Adding pics is mostly a matter of hitting return where you want the pic (I think), which opens up a new block that you can specify is for pictures.
It’s been too long since I did a post, so this could be, err, inoperative.
*stares at ~70ft static water level here*