Water, Safe Water, and Natural Disasters

Good morning everybody, and welcome back with Deb and I, to Coverin’ the Bases. Thank you for dropping by to see us. In our introductory column we told of a checklist Deb and I had made for ourselves after the economy went south. Again, these are some of the things we have done personally to become a little more self-sufficient and provide us with ways to help us, and our family in “Ridin’ Out the Recession.”

---

We’d like to share some of these ideas with you, and hope you in turn will decide to share some of your own. This is all in the hope of possibly “waking” some people up, or educating them maybe, in the benefits of raising a garden, putting up some food, or at least giving them some “food for thought.” We’ve discussed the benefits of home canning, and covered the same in regards to the Foodsaver Vacuum System. As we go on with this column, we’ll discuss both subjects further, even helping the people who don’t know about these topics, to learn the basics of the “how to” of both. Today we’ll be discussing water and its importance to each of us. Let’s get started!

Water:

How many of you think that water is just a few steps away with the simple act of turning a faucet on? All of you I’m sure. Now how many of you have experienced ice storms, flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes, fire, etc., and all of a sudden you came to the realization that I’m turning this dad-gum faucet on… but there ain’t nothing coming out of it? Quite an eye opener, huh? Deb and I experienced this first hand in 2004 with the crossing of three major hurricanes across our state, and literally right over the top of us. We lost power three separate times, for a week or over each time. No power, no water, lost our meat in our freezers, couldn’t cook…. This was our first “awakening!” The second, well we ALL can relate to this one…the economy! Our focus turned to, what can we do in regards to covering the bases, and that’s exactly what we began to do. Food and Food Storage became a priority, and we’ve shared some of that with you, and will talk about it much more. Water definitely was, is, and always will be a priority, so we tried to address this issue as well and in regards to Deb and I, we did. As I said earlier in the Coverin’ the Bases introductory, our solutions that work for us here in Florida may not work for you in N. or S. Dakota, or anywhere else for that matter, but some will. Actually a lot will. But by you guys across the country contributing to this, we’ll get to the point where we all know what works, and for what areas too! Sharing of our knowledge with a common goal! In this regard Deb and I personally, are very limited in our knowledge to all this, but if we contribute a little, and all the rest contribute a little, people, do you realize this is what moves mountains! Plus the greatest part about this, is the helping, and educating of our friends, our neighbors, and guess what…ourselves! Here in Florida we have a pretty high water table most of the time, so water is fairly accessible to us. My thoughts on this…great, we’re very lucky here in the “Sunshine State” when it comes to this! So what’d we do? We put in one shallow well, for water in general, and added the old style hand “pitcher pump” to our deep well. In regards to our deep well, our well man convinced me to do this. I thought he was crazy until he “educated” me in his reasoning, and the man was right! Our deep well for our house is 280’ deep, and has good clean water. No type of softener system, anything. My feeling on the well depth was simply that a pitcher pump couldn’t pull water from that depth…are you crazy? His response was, “It won’t be pulling from 280’, your water table here is from 20 to 40’, it will work fine.” Then it clicked in my head, the guy was 100% right, once again in most of Florida our water table is very high, dad-gum if I don’t believe it will indeed work, and it did. Thanks Aaron! From our well shaft he put in a threaded connection that allows the pitcher pump to sit atop this. He then added two valves, one to cut off the water flow from our electric powered pump, and the other to open up and allow the water to be pumped manually, using the pitcher pump. Works like a champ, and supplies us with good, clean drinking water, even if there is no power! One down. Our shallow well sits behind our house and is used to supply water to our livestock, or even bathing needs, if for some reason that would be needed. We also have two pretty good-sized ponds that could be used for the same. This well also could be used as our personal drinking supply also, you just have to “pump the pitcher pump” a little longer, but the water does clear up and is plenty clean enough to drink. In our shallow well we installed another pitcher pump, thus giving us two different water supplies if we were to lose power. The shallow well is only 40’ deep. We washed the pipe into the ground with a small pump, using the water from the pump, as I said, to literally wash the pipe into the ground. It has a well point on the bottom of the pipe. Now again, I don’t know about the areas across the country where you live, but here where we are…it’s the ticket. Remember, we have sandy soil, and this is what enabled us to install the shallow well so easily. After installing our pitcher pump on our deep well, the well man immediately saw the benefits this provided, and he took several pictures of this setup. He stated what a great it was, and would be telling all his customers on a well system of these benefits, saying this is a good selling point for him as well. Showing others the benefits, as well as the simplicity of its workings…NO POWER…no problem, water only a few pumps away! We also put up two complete pitcher pump re-build kits. One goes out for any reason, in just a few minutes we’ve replaced “the guts,” and water is flowing once more! Simple, convenient, and always have water...believe me, it’s a good feeling! Now, this works for us, so I’m asking all you people in different parts of this great Country of ours, to share your solutions to your own water problems, to enlighten our friends in regards to their dilemma of no power, no water. Anything you can share will be greatly appreciated by all. Thanks! Keep a smile on your face, and one in your heart! God Bless each and every one of you! Thanks for stopping in, and please come back and visit us again, and let’s continue on in our worthwhile project of…”Coverin’ the Bases!” Dub and Deb

---