In my previous entry in this series I imparted unto you this timeless wisdom:
Any property you are considering needs to have vehicular access to it or be prepared to create that access with a considerable sum of money.
If you haven't read my first two installments in this epic mini-series, by all means, please do!
Things to Consider When Evaluating a Property Part 1: The Background Story
Things to Consider when Evaluating a Property Part 2:
In this post I’m going to talk about the importance of having, in the words of Bobby Boucher, Jr:
"High Quality H2O"
on your potential property.
Water, that is!
Whether that be municipal water supply (yes, even in rural Arkansas a person can get city water pumped to them), a pond, river, creek, or natural springs.
Any source of water is better than no water.
You've probably already guessed as much, but ol' Mucky Mountain had none of it. Well, I take that back. It did have some seasonal natural springs.
I found them right where my dirt road had been placed!
WHERE WOULD WE GET OUR WATER FROM THEN?
There had to be a better way!
Thankfully, local folk were kind enough to tell us about a large natural spring just south of Yellville where a lot of people without a well or municipal water still go to get their water needs met.
It's a strictly Bring Your Own container policy.
We did our part to reduce, reuse and recycle those gallon jugs! We used the natural spring to fill our jugs once about every 3 days. Let me tell you, it was a lot of work!
Who needed a gym membership when your lugging 100 gallons of water around every 3 days.
Remember, once the wet weather set in we were no longer able to drive up the slope of our mountain. Rather, we had to park at the bottom and haul all that water up the slope, slipping and sliding along the way.
Think about it: one gallon of water weighs around 7 lbs. That meant we were lugging 700 lbs of water every 3 days up 700 feet of mucky trail. WHAT FUN!
I had a heavy duty bag that I would put 10 gallon jugs into and slung it over my shoulder while I drug a garbage can with about 20 gallons of water in. I would rinse and repeat that process 3 more times until all 100 gallons were at the top.
Wow, that makes me tired just recollecting it!
Still, there had to be an even better way!
And there was...
We purchased some potable water IBC totes off of craiglist and rigged up a pvc piping system utilizing the natural water pressure bursting forth from the spring to fill them.
This ingenious system wasn't my original idea but came from a fellow waterer who I met while getting water one day.
It worked like a charm!
We still weren't able to drive the IBC totes to the top of our land, but we were able to make it about half way up.
That saved us from having to go back to the spring every 3 days and it saved us a 700 foot round trip to the water supply.
So, after much effort we created "access", sorta, and we were able to get water to our Mucky Mountain. Phew!
Thankfully, It wasn't long before the dirt road started to dry up. Then things got even easier. But, that's for another post.
Stay tuned for the Rest of the Story...
Thanks for Reading!
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Great post! Thank you for sharing with us your natural infrastructure building experience. Looking forward to your future posts!
@estream.studios, please upvote me, https://steemit.com/my2017/@jibril/new-year-better-me-2018
I agree just the sounds of that is tiring!
You are beginning to find out why the land was so cheap. that is a lot of water to be dragging/carrying, no wonder you are such a big handsome bloke.
an Imp gallon is 10 lb, 1 US gal is 0.83 lb, so you were even stronger than you thought.
Nuts to all that. I'm tired just reading about it.
I like to think about what I might have done in your place. Probably the same stuff. Or I'd probably spend a bunch of money to rig up a pump system from the bottom of the hill to the top, which isn't financially sound either.
Is there a way you can melt the snow and then purify it? That is just a ton of work. We go to the store and refill two 5 gallon jugs at a time. They're a lot easier to carry than a bunch of the 1 gallon jugs, that's for sure. But I like your pumping method. I'm curious as to where you got the rest of the water when your "well" dried up...good way to leave us hanging!
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