You never miss the water until the well runs dry.

We woke up at midnight to find we had no water.  Yikes!  So we wandered around in the dark looking for faucets that could have been left on (no luck) and realized that the well had run dry.

Fortunately, we have a backup system where we can turn a valve and switch to the lake irrigation system water.  When we switched, the lake pump never quit running, so we knew we had a serious leak somewhere.  The lake is an unlimited supply of water, so we left the pump running all night so that we could still have water.  After we did that at midnight, we tried to sleep while we waited for light. When we got up this morning, we isolated the problem to the log house, so we started digging.

Fortunately we have tools so it wasn't all done by hand, but we had to avoid propane lines, phone lines, and power lines that also cross the yard where we have water lines for both the lake system and the well system.

That tiny yellow line is the propane line - we managed to find it and the phone line without damaging them.

 The exposed pipe is from an old water line - this house was built in 1940, and water piped from the lake in the years before the well was installed.  As we dug, we had to identify every line we found to avoid destroying something we still use.

We found the leak at the very end of the line - when we were just about ready to give up - When you have the most perkable soils in the history of the world, you have to be within a foot of a 5000 gallon leak to see any evidence of it. 

The leak is repaired, but both of us may need a few hours of rest to get ourselves repaired.  We can cover up our digging tomorrow!

Tripping across the U.S.A. (again)

Twice a year, Ron and I drive across the country.  Usually we take the "short" way - or what we call the "Northern Route".  However, last year when we were driving two cars, we ran into snow, sleet, ice, wind, and overall miserable driving conditions.  Since we were leaving about two weeks earlier this year and the weather forecast looked a bit formidable for the I-90 corridor, we decided to take the "southern route".  This one takes us all the way across the southern tier of states on I-20 and I-10, and then straight up I-5.  The overall trip is about 500 miles further this way, but we can be pretty sure if we see snow it will only be for a few miles in the Siskiyous in northern California and Oregon.

 

It's coming back to us why we avoid this route. 

Palo Verde trees are in bloom and beautiful in Arizona.

The dessert is at its most vibrant.

 

So a lot of the trip is much more interesting on the southern route at this time of year.

 

Love the rock formations of Arizona.

 

We smelt this coming for about 5 miles before we got to it in California.

Now this is dedication to protecting a crop!

Many different crops for hundreds of miles in Southern California, from citrus, to nuts, to row crops.

Olives,

Pistachios, and much more!

We've missed all the California agriculture.  I love to see things growing, and California is the growing capital of the country.  Forty years ago, I took an Environmental Studies course, and the underlying theme then was how limiting a factor water was and would increasingly be in the future.

 

 

The future is here.  We saw signs all over California about water, and the last wheel line we saw was somewhere in Alabama.  

 We saw our first white mountain when we were a little south of Redding, and Mt Shasta was gorgeous as we went further north.

I have been missing mountains!