So today the well ran dry...

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May 7, 2013
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Not exactly, but just as bad. One of the things we deal with living here in the mountains is maintaining a water supply. The good side of that is that we get to tap into a gen-u-wine underground, beautifully clear, mountain spring. because it is underground and filtered through rock systems all we have to do is filter it a bit at the house. It is as good (most likely better) than the water you buy in bottles and pay a fortune for. No added chemicals, good stuff.

But that also means a well system. The way ours works is that we have a well in a field near our pond and a sunken pump that pumps from the well to a pressure tank and then is fed further up the mountain to the house. Power to the pump comes from the area around the pressure tank and runs underground about 350 ft. In recent years, Prairie Dogs have begun to move into the field - the little buggers proliferate like you would not believe - and their "towns" can become huge.

Anyway, I guess one of our "guests" didn't care for the electric wiring (originally laid in the mid-'90s when conduit was not required) and chewed through it causing a short - and no mo' H2O. So after going last night without water, we bought a 500 ft spool of copper wiring ($1.60 a foot!!!!) and temporarily laid it across the ground until I can get someone here to trench and lay some conduit through which to permanently run the wiring and we're going to change the pump (18 years old) while we're at it. We're talking fairly big bucks here.

So the moral of the story - Prairie Dogs are expensive and inconvenient SOBs. And water is really important when you don't have any... :D
 
All the best to you getting this fixed SB...I recently shelled out a couple grand for water treatment equipment...not fun, but at least our water is clear now and not brown or grey coming out of the faucet...gotta have water!
 
All the best to you getting this fixed SB...I recently shelled out a couple grand for water treatment equipment...not fun, but at least our water is clear now and not brown or grey coming out of the faucet...gotta have water!

Indeed you do, and clear water is FAR better than brown or grey (ick).

I wish I lived closer...I have a cure for your prairie dog problem. :D

I've been applying your cure but the little suckers breed faster than I can remove 'em. I do cheer on the birds of prey (we have a lot of them) as they fetch their dinner and the fairly dense coyote population is much more welcome around here as well.
 
I've been applying your cure but the little suckers breed faster than I can remove 'em. I do cheer on the birds of prey (we have a lot of them) as they fetch their dinner and the fairly dense coyote population is much more welcome around here as well.


WOW...now that's saying something...I'd imagine that your birds of prey eat well and the coyotes are fat...do you have the kind of area that you could invite friends or hunters to assist you in your endeavour? Some of the farmers in Oregon and the surrounding areas have shoots once or twice a year wherein they invite hunters to come and (responsibly) erradicate the local prairie dog population so that their crops don't suffer. Kills the proverbial 2 birds with one stone. Hunters get to hunt and you eliminate the prairie dog population...or @ least put a significant dent in it.
 
WOW...now that's saying something...I'd imagine that your birds of prey eat well and the coyotes are fat...do you have the kind of area that you could invite friends or hunters to assist you in your endeavour? Some of the farmers in Oregon and the surrounding areas have shoots once or twice a year wherein they invite hunters to come and (responsibly) erradicate the local prairie dog population so that their crops don't suffer. Kills the proverbial 2 birds with one stone. Hunters get to hunt and you eliminate the prairie dog population...or @ least put a significant dent in it.

That is the unfortunate part. Kind of hard to describe but the area where they have expanded is part of the bottom of a very wide canyon. But the portion of my property that they have invaded is fairly narrow and close to the only road in or out of the canyon. The terrain goes up from there and they have not expanded up, they have just stayed on the flat portion. Problem is that my land is too close to the highway to allow firearms. That said, I have a nice, scoped Diana air rifle that is as accurate as you can get for such a weapon. It does a good job, but I can't use any of my varmint rifles (I have a .222 and a .257 Roberts both with G.R. Douglas barrels as well as a .22 LR Winchester that would be great for this kind of thing) or invite anyone to use firearms to assist.

Further down the road, where the land widens towards the opening of the canyon, ranchers have been using firearms and inviting folks to help thin the population. Just can't do that here. But it is just amazing how fast these things spread.
 
One word...POISON! If need be... on the sly. Let 'em commit suicide. Better than no water.
 
One word...POISON! If need be... on the sly. Let 'em commit suicide. Better than no water.

I think we'll be OK in the future once I get the conduit laid down so they can't get to the wire. But we do need to find a way to get them under control...

There's valuable information on pest control in the movie "Caddyshack".

An educational film indeed..and don't think that I haven't considered Carl Spackler's techniques. ;)
 
I know what you're going through. I replaced all the wiring in my well system about three months ago. It sucks doing without water. Good Luck!
 
sorry to hear about your troubles, hop you can get ti fixed with the minimum of more trouble, water is life after all :)

good luck.
 
not to hi-jack your thread but the water heater decided our floors were not quite wet enough last night and now our water's turned of and a bunch of stuff is sitting up to dry while I price new ones.

Not having water really does suck, having it over your floor isn't so great either :(
 
not to hi-jack your thread but the water heater decided our floors were not quite wet enough last night and now our water's turned of and a bunch of stuff is sitting up to dry while I price new ones.

Not having water really does suck, having it over your floor isn't so great either :(

Yep. That is worse.

The last time I got a new hot water heater I looked at the flow through style, but they weren't yet advanced enough to make them worth our while. I'm going to have to replace ours again here in the next year or two and plan to take another look at them and see if they have come far enough to warrant buying one.

In concept, that is the way to go if/when they get them to the point that they can heat well enough during the flow through...

Best of luck getting things fixed.
 
A water distiller works wonders , will give you clean water 100 percent of the time when things like this happen.
And there are some excellent gravity filtration systems available.
 
Don't know if it's worse but it sucks :) went out and bought the necessaries, just replacing the standard electric 50 gallon and going to put in a cock and ball valve whcih would have helped this time around so we could keep the water on to the house :mad:

ah well, there's worse things :p

Yep. That is worse.

The last time I got a new hot water heater I looked at the flow through style, but they weren't yet advanced enough to make them worth our while. I'm going to have to replace ours again here in the next year or two and plan to take another look at them and see if they have come far enough to warrant buying one.

In concept, that is the way to go if/when they get them to the point that they can heat well enough during the flow through...

Best of luck getting things fixed.
 
not to hi-jack your thread but the water heater decided our floors were not quite wet enough last night and now our water's turned of and a bunch of stuff is sitting up to dry while I price new ones.

Not having water really does suck, having it over your floor isn't so great either :(
Sorry for all the water problems guys & I apologize for the further highjacking,but had to show this to Pete.(and anyone else interested)magesium from a water heater

And please be carefull of mold growing in that damp enviroment Pete,that stuff will mess you & your family up.
 
Thanks Myke, hadn't even thought of that,

and yeah, I've been down there all day with towels, fans and a shop-vac, found some discoloration on one of the walls but it's a storage room so thinking I'll just cut that part of the drywall clean out and have done with it (unless i find something behind it to!). Thanks for good idea and kind warning!

Sorry for all the water problems guys & I apologize for the further highjacking,but had to show this to Pete.(and anyone else interested)magesium from a water heater

And please be carefull of mold growing in that damp enviroment Pete,that stuff will mess you & your family up.
 
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