The Well . . .

We have had a water well for irrigation purposes almost as long as we have owned this house.  The well is about 200 feet deep and goes into the Paluxey aquifer.   The Paluxey is a river, more like a large creek, west of us but apparently feeds this aquifer.  There is another aquifer below it but it is well over six hundred feet down.  And that is quite expensive to drill to.

We live in the city limits and one would ask why a well.  The City of Weatherford thinks extremely highly of their water.  It is extremely pricey.  I cost us about $6,000 to drill our well and have he pump and electrical work done.  We amortized that in two years.  So since then the expense of the well has been maintenance of the system and the electricity to operate the sprinkler system and run the pump.   I would guess that would have been maybe $100 or $150 a year.  And for that we have a green yard.

Of late the well has been acting up.  We had the well people check it out and it ended up with a new pump to be installed.  That was $1,790 but once every 16 years, well that is not much.  While we were at it we had the pump lowered down deeper into the aquifer.  We added 40 feet of pipe.  So now we know we will not cavitate the pump.

So we are about to green up again.  I have been running the water extra cycles to get the grass green again.  Surprisingly the grass responds quickly, in just a couple of days it is nice and green again.

Few people do not realize we are in a semi arid zone, next to desert almost.  We get seasonal rains in the Spring and they suffer through a long hot and dry summer.  We get cracks in the ground and the trees seem to suffer through it all.  Watering keeps the trees healthy too.

Now back to fixing sprinklers, adjusting them, cleaning them (yes, they have little filters to catch debris and some times stop up).  I consider an irrigation system as a source of constant maintenance.   It is just upkeep but it has to be done.