A Rather Boring Day

We were planning to drive to Spokane this morning to pick up the auction cards and a couple of prescriptions, but decided that we should stay at the ranch to see how the well driller did today. We were hoping he would have a good day today and actually hit water, but it didn't happen.

They're drilling through some rather hard dark basalt-type rock, but they did get down to 440 feet today. They stayed late this afternoon (they usually are long gone by four PM), but didn't get a breakthrough. I guess we'll have to wait until Monday now.

I finally finished the bracelet I was making with Bill's hand blown beads (three strands), but now have decided it is WAY TOO HEAVY! I was playing around with a couple of left over beads and made some neat earrings that I really like, but I think I will take the bracelet apart again. I'm thinking I have enough beads to do a single strand necklace as well as a single strand bracelet. Hmm.

The Well Drillers

I wasn't even out of bed this morning when I heard the sound of heavy machinery. After I got my teeth brushed -- and some clothes on -- I went over to see what was going on.

The well drillers were attempting to get their rig backed up and centered over the well head and were having quite a time. The ground between the farm buildings and the creek bed is very soft and they kept getting stuck as they attempted to back in. Luckily they have huge jacks on the rig itself and could hoist it up so that the truck could get straightened around and try again. It took them over an hour, but they finally got everything centered over the well.

The wellhead:

The drilling rig raised up and ready to go:

The drilling company:

The drill master:

I know that they did drill through the cement that they had poured on Monday afternoon, but I'm not sure how deep they got today...

A Clean House -- Well, a Cleaner One, Anyway!

We put in some major effort today, cleaning up after all of the dust storms. I think I'd blocked out memories of what it was like to live on the ranch in all of the sand and dust! To this day, I don't care for knick-knacks, got too sick of dusting them and then looking over a few hours later and seeing that they were dusty again.

Forry vacuumed while I cleaned mirrors and dusted, then mopped the tile floors. I went ahead and washed the bathroom throw rugs while I was at it. I'd better take advantage of having water before the well driller finally gets busy. We'll be using water from the tanks that Jeff had filled, but will need to be conserving (back to boon-docking?).

Jeff has had trouble with the domestic well the last month or so. He's not been able to keep ahead enough to keep the yard watered. The water table in this Odessa Aquifer keeps dropping. We drilled the well deeper a few years ago until they ran into sand. Now they will have to pour concrete into the well to fill in the sand area, then drill through it in order to make it deeper. The well driller moved all of his equipment in last Friday, but said he wouldn't get started until after Labor Day. This morning he said they had an emergency, so didn't make it today. Maybe tomorrow?