water, finally

I hired a well consultant to look at the well pump. He declared he couldn't fix it, so handed me off to a well maintenance company. It became immediately obvious why neither I nor the consultant could do anything: the downpipes were galvanized steel. The 160 feet or so of pipe and pump probably weighed about 300 lbs -- too much to lift by hand. It was a real treat watching the pros do their job pulling up the old pump. Now I know what it entails.

Not a moment too soon either. I was down to my last 20 gallons of rainwater. The birds were never out of water, but they did go without baths for a week.

Everything is back to normal it seems. The geese are doing the nasty as of last week, and yesterday I had their first egg of the year for dinner. I'm not sure if this is too early for geese or not. Duck egg production is up to 5 a day now, up from a low of 2 a day.

I have a couple tons -- and I mean that quite literally -- of well-decomposed compost collected over the past two years. This was made with goose, guinea, and duck poop combined with sawdust. It is great stuff. Let me know if you want some for your garden.

Rain!

Rain becomes precious once you don't have a water supply. Last night I collected about 120 gallons -- enough to allow the birds a nice bath in their kiddie pool, plus drinking water for a week. I drink bottled water, fear not; but I do use the rainwater for my bath too. What's good for the goose, gander, and duck is good enough for me.

The news on the well pump is that replacing the "motor start capacitor" and blown fuse did not fix anything. My guess, as explained to me by the motor repair shop, is that this pump is simply at the end of its life -- somewhere between 10 and 15 years. That is the expected lifetime. When the motor goes, it takes out the motor start capacitor (that's the first thing they asked me in fact, "Did your motor start capacitor leak fluid all over the place?" Yup.) I replaced said capacitor, then the fuse blew. It all seems to make sense. Except that the timing of the well pump going at nearly the same time as the pressure pump is still a mystery.

In the meantime, I'm storing rain in all the garbage cans and kiddie pools I have. And special purpose rain barrels are on order -- 240 gallons worth. Once they are in place, we can take the usual weekly California rain/drought cycles in stride.