Drinking right out of the stream

When I was a kid I used to hike in the woods. It was common for me to drink right out of the streams. It never made me sick either. These days, thanks to the prevalence of giardia, everything is run through a water filter, or at least boiled.

It's only in recent years that I've bothered with putting a water filter on my house. Now I'm careful to get really good filters that handle both biological and chemical threats. Just ordered another package of filters to keep on hand.

My lovely wife pointed out the cover on my shallow well needs to be replaced. Our well is a traditional rocked up shallow well. A good cover is key to keeping out contaminants. The fit has to be good and tight.

Our course, once again, I'm working without much of a budget. With that in mind I'm going to use what I have around the house. There's also the issue of avoiding anything with harsh chemicals that could leech into the water. Pressure treated lumber could stand up to the wet environment, but the “treatment” is actually poison. Instead I'm going to cut up some cedar beams from downed trees. Cedar is naturally rot resistant.

One of these days I'm going to to build a traditional spring house. They were a lot more common in the days before refrigeration. It's just basically a well insulated little shed over the well. Very low tech, but very useful.

Sixbears