Fire and water

Early November finds me actualizing some of the major infrastructural plans of my little homestead. Water lines (all 2000 feet of them) are buried, power line is connected to the house, the house is plumbed to the septic tank, and the GORGEOUS wood stove is now in the house. (***There will be another whole post later about the stove itself and all it represents in the world of friendship and warmth.) The stove is not set up yet, but it is getting good and ready for that. My hydraulic ram pump has arrived in the mail, and it will be set up and connected to tie the whole water system together on Monday. A ram pump is a non-electric water pump that uses the force of water falling through a pipe to power itself to pump the water uphill to a point far above the original source. The plan is to pump the water up the hill (underground) to a 600 gallon storage tank which is buried on the ridge above the house- 600 feet from the house at about an 80 ft elevation rise. The water will be gravity fed to the house from that tank and will have good water pressure. The overflow water will go over the other side of the hill to share with some of the lovely neighbors, whose spring is fussy in dry weather. Assuming everything works as planned, very soon I will have a functional water system in place that meets my 3 goals: to get water to my house, to share water with the neighbors, and to keep the branch wet. (Most of the water that flows into the ram pump is used to pump a much smaller volume of water up the hill- and then splashes back out into the branch.) When the pump is up and running, I will dedicate a post to its glory. Same with the woodstove. Fire and water. For now, enjoy the pictures of a crazy ditch digging operation that occured last week... Sorry for the sideways ones.