Lia's Vineyard

A call to PGE and an electrician. Simple in theory ... but ... the tricky part is that there is a series of tasks that need to be completed sequentially. Of course it is always raining, people are busy. This took nearly six months. Getting water cost about three times the already generous amount budgeted. Oh, and the water tastes kinda stinky.

Next step, the pump, which is controlled by what is essentially a $2,000 version of an old 286 computer. Go figure. The very expensive pump controlled by this piece of technology dangles from a wire and pumps from the bottom of the well. The pump guys did good work and the pump was in. All we needed was power.

Late last summer, we put in a well. Our goal was to have it up and running in time for harvest so we could clean up the fruit bins, tractors, and ourselves. Well, let’s just say it isn’t quite so easy as all that. Drilling the well was more stressful than I’d anticipated. You just don’t know if you’ll even hit water, and then there is the fear of hitting salt water, or having a three-gallons-per-hour type of well. When the driller called the first evening and said he was at 250 feet and had no water yet, but he would keep drilling the next day, I didn’t sleep very much that night. But the next morning when I went out to the farm, water was gushing from the ground. It was gray, gritty water, but it was water and lots of it. The result: a “strong” 16 gpm at 405 feet with 40 feet of water depth. Big relief.