The Pasture Well

     Harvest or subzero weather.

    That’s when the well would quit working.  Water on the dry old plains presents a difficulty that the natives consider part of the cost of living there.

     Some farm water systems rely on rainfall and runoff capture systems to keep a cistern or storage tank supplied with water.  Rain and snow on the plains are not reliable enough sources for domestic water supply. 

    Right after erecting some kind of shelter, the early homesteaders would have to dig a well.  On our homestead there are three hand dug wells.  The total comes to five counting two on Frank Horak’s homestead.  There are probably more that were “dry holes” that got covered up soon after they were dug. None of the hand dug wells are in use anymore. 

     Water “witches” were in high demand in those “olden days.”  The hand dug wells in our area are 80 to 90 feet deep.  It would be heartbreaking to spend the time to dig down 90 feet and hit bedrock but no water.  The water witch would find the right place to dig.  Even with that talented person’s help, many holes were dry.  Many more wells furnished water for a while and then “dried up.”  Sch was the case for two of the three wells on the home place.

     All our hand dug wells had some kind of cement works on the surface to provide a base for a pump and to keep the top of the well from eroding or caving in.  The well that supplied our water for years has plastered walls extending from the water up to about four feet below the surface.  A fifty gallon drum with the ends cut out and surrounded by cement provides the surface platform for the well cover and the pump.          

      The traditional windlass with bucket and rope was probably used in the olden days but was impracticable with the depths of the wells.   Add the fact that our domestic well is four or five hundred yards away from the house and the impracticality is magnified.  Hand pumps and windmills to the rescue. 

      As long as I can remember, we had two windmills to supply domestic and livestock water.  The “pasture” windmill and pump system was fairly simple.  The windmill wheel turned a crankshaft that raised and lowered the pump rod as the crankshaft went around and around.  The pump rod went through a pipe to the bottom of the well.  At the bottom of the pipe was the cylinder.

     The cylinder was the clever device that made the pump work.  It was brass, about two feet long and two to three inches in diameter.  On the pump rod within the cylinder were two to four cupped leather washers that fit tightly against the cylinder walls.  They provided the suction or lift.  A valve on the very end of the rod and inside the “leathers” opened as the pump rod went down, allowing water to enter the cylinder.  As the rod started back up, the weight of the water closed the valve and the water went up with the rise of the rod. Another valve inside the leathers above the lower valve worked in the opposite way of its counterpart.  It closed as the rod went down, not letting water run back down into the well, and opened as the rod rose to let the water go up the pipe.

     When the water rose to the surface, it came through an old-fashioned hand pump assembly.  It poured out the pump body’s spout.  A cup with a bail handle and a pipe threaded into its outlet hung on the pump’s spout.  The pipe took the water to the stock tank.   

     It all worked very well when the wind blew and the leathers were in good shape.  Rarely, but once in a while, the wind would not blow for two or three days in a row.  Then we hitched the pump handle up to the pump rod and each took our turn at pushing up and down on the handle until there as enough water for the cattle.

      Of course the leathers wore out and no longer lifted the water.  Silt or sand in the water would wear the leathers out pretty quickly.  Occasionally, the well casing, the porous ring in the bottom of the well where the pipe went, had to be cleaned out to get rid of sand and once in a while, a dead animal.  (Sometimes the well platform developed a hole or opening and a rabbit, mouse, or snake would find its way into the well.)

      That meant someone had to go down into the well.  That was always Dad until a couple of my brothers grew big enough for the job.  (My claustrophobia prevented me from ever taking on the job.)

      First, the pump had to be “pulled”.  That involved raising the pipe out of the well.  A chain hoist fastened to an iron bar across the top of the windmill tower started the procedure.  We raised the hand pump portion up high enough to get to the first “joint” or coupling in the pipe.  A pipe “dog” held the pipe, keeping it from dropping back into the well.  Two pipe wrenches, one on the pipe coupling and one on the pipe above the coupling, turned the top section of pipe out of the coupling.  “Lefty Loosey” took some strength to get the pipes apart.  Then the top section of pipe, including the cast iron hand pump, had to be raised enough to locate the coupling in the pump rod inside the pipe.  That coupling had to be taken apart, too.  Then the hand pump and top section of pipe could be let down out of the way.

     Now the remaining pipe could be lifted by two guys with pipe wrenches.  It was still heavy because the pipe was filled with water if the valve in the cylinder was doing its job.  The pipe dog had a movable jaw that went up and down.  You put your pipe wrenches on the pipe just above the jaws of the pipe dog.  When you lifted the pipe, the dog jaw would swing up and let the pipe rise.  When you lifted the pipe as high as you could, you let the pipe slide back down a bit.  The dog jaw would swing down and clamp the pipe, not letting the pipe go down any farther.    Stoop over while sliding the pipe wrenches down the pipe to get another “bite” on the pipe just above the pipe dog.  Lift, let pipe back an inch until the dog “bites”.  Repeat action a half dozen times and the 21’ section of pipe would be sticking up through the tower and another coupling would work its way through the pipe dog jaws. 

      This time when you loosen the pipe from the coupling, you have to be careful.  There’s water in that 21’ of pipe.  When the threads are loosened enough, the water with 21 feet of head pressure comes squirting out.  That wasn’t terribly uncomfortable in the summer time, but when it was winter and cold, it was dangerous.  Not only did you get a chilling bath, but ice formed under foot around the well mouth.  Yikes!    

     When the water was all drained out, separate the pipe and hold it suspended while you uncouple the pump rod.  Holding the pump rod, you took the base of the pipe to a corner of the tower and stood it out of the way.  It was a two man job for sure.

     The last section of pipe held the cylinder.  It had to be taken apart and the leathers replaced.  Taking the cylinder apart was a bit tricky.  The cylinder was brass and care had to be taken not to dent or crush the cylinder in any way or its effectiveness as a water lifter would be impaired. 

     Once the pipe was removed it was time to descend into the well.  We would rig two pulleys in the windmill tower, one attached to a tower leg at the bottom of the tower, and one attached to the crow bar at the top of the tower, the same one used to support the chain hoist that raised the first section of pipe.

      We would thread a thick rope (the “well” rope used to pull the old spruce tree in the right direction) through the pulleys.  At the end of the rope coming down from the top pulley, Dad would form a loop or two in the rope.  The main loop was big enough for him to put his leg through and slide up to his crotch.  That would be the saddle he would ride to the bottom of the well and back to the surface when his job was done.

    Another loop might hold a bucket and some sort of shovel that he would need to clean out the well casing once he got down there.  From the top pulley the rope went through the bottom pulley which directed the rope horizontally beneath the tower to the tractor front axle.

    The other end of the rope was tied securely to the tractor axle.  Back the tractor up till all the slack was out of the rope.  Dad would mount his “saddle”, the tractor would back a little further until Dad was suspended over the well mouth.  The tractor had to be shifted from reverse to first gear low range.  Dad would be swinging back and forth over the well while the shifting took place. 

     Then as slow as the tractor would go forward, the descent started.  Even as slow as the tractor was going, Dad would yell to slow down, the well walls were racing past him, and he would be banging against the walls one side then the other.  With leather gloves, one person could slow his descent by grabbing the rope, but it would create some slack in the rope between the tower and the tractor.

     When Dad reached the bottom of the well, he would crawl out of the rope and begin the job of cleaning out the well casing.  He had created a tool that would allow him to stand on the well casing and not in the water.  The digging part was an old license plate folded into a “U” and nailed to a 1”X6”.  The wood served as the back of the scoop and connected to a wooden handle.  He would shovel the sand and silt into the bucket.  When the bucket was full, we would pull it up and empty it.

     Raising and lowering the bucket was touchy business.  You had to avoid the sides of the well and be careful not to kick anything down the well.  The smallest pebble that fell into the well would elicit yells from Dad.  He equated getting hit with a pebble to being shot with a BB gun or getting hit by a hail stone.  By the time it fell the 70 to 90 feet, it was going pretty fast.

      Getting the full bucket out of the well without kicking anything into the well and without spilling anything could be tricky.  Once the bucket was empty, the same care must be taken to get the bucket back into the well and back down to Dad.

     Dad didn’t have a miner’s lamp for his head.  Light was provided by holding a mirror in the sunlight and reflecting the beam into the well.  When the sunlight reflected from the water back into your eyes, you had the mirror held right.  It was a job I did as a kid.  It was exciting for a few minutes, but it got boring pretty quickly to lie beside the well without moving so as not to cause anything to fall into the well and hold the light steady.       

     Well work often involved the entire family when it was warm weather.  Our well work would have sent OSHA reaching for the Kaopectate, had they been around then, with the open well, tools lying around, pulleys bailing-wired to poles and bars, little kids running around.

     One time Grandma T was on hand when we did the pasture well.  She was sitting on the running board of the old Ford pickup.  I don’t remember what brought up the saying, but apparently we had overcome some difficult problem.  She said, “It’s all perseverance and (pause) I don’t like to say that other thing your Grandad used to say.”

    My curiosity was piqued.  But nobody would tell me the rest of the saying.  It was a while before I learned “the rest of the story”—“It’s all perseverance and three-in-one oil.”  This from the same Grandad who once in a while would say at breakfast, “Pretty good biscuits, Ma.  Musta’ forgot to wash your hands this morning.” 

    Eventually Dad would put the shovel in the bucket and wire the handle to the rope and that would be the last bucketful.  We would remove the bucket and shovel and send the rope down empty.  Dad would step into the loop, the tractor would back up slowly and up he would come.

     Then the pipe and rod had to be reassembled.  The cylinder complete with new leathers went in first, the pipe dog slid over the pipe above the cylinder.  One at a time the pipe sections with the rod inside was carried over to the coupling sticking out of the pipe dog’s jaws.  One person had to hold up the pipe while the rod was reconnected and tightened securely.

      Then you threaded the 21’ of pipe into the coupling.  In order for the threads to connect correctly, the pipe had to be in line with the pipe in the dog.  That could be a challenge with the pipe banging around in the top of the tower and the windmill head.  The pipe also had to be tightened securely.

     Lowering the reconnected length of pipe took a different procedure than raising it.  The pipe dog didn’t like letting the pipe down.  After all, not letting the pipe down was its job.  There was a handle on the movable jaw.  It was like a foot pedal.  To let the pipe down, both guys picked up on the pipe wrenches, now chest high, to loosen the dog’s grip on the pipe, and one man had to step on the pedal to hold the jaw open as the pipe went down.

     The first hitch required a wide-open jaw to allow the coupling to clear the jaws.  When the pipe wrenches neared the pipe dog, the guy holding the pipe jaw open had to step off the pedal and allow the dog to clamp the pipe and hold it while the wrenches were repositioned chest high for another hitch.  Five or six more hitches would get the pipe section down to the coupling and time to bring over another section of pipe.

     There were some advantages to lowering the pipe.  It wasn’t full of water as it was coming up, so it wasn’t as heavy.  Plus you weren’t getting wet at every joint. 

     The last section with the hand pump would go back up.  The heavy chain hoist, removed for the well-cleaning operation, had to be carried back up into the tower and hooked to the crowbar.  When the last section was hooked up, the pipe dog came off the platform and the pump lowered with the chain hoist.  The wood platform was fitted around the pipe and the pump lowered to the base.  The platform consisted of 2”X12”’s plus a one-inch board here and there to get the pump the right height and to hold all the 2”X12”s together.

    It was time turn on the windmill to see if everything worked right.  While the pump was going up and down with the wind, gather and load up all the tools and equipment.  By the time that was done the water should be flowing into the stock tank.  All was well for the time being.  We could get back to harvesting wheat.

    Next, the “house” well