Well done

With rain threatening I hustled to get my dug well cover replaced. Since it was framed up with cedar poles there was a lot more cutting and fitting than one would have with dimensional lumber. However, cedar is long lasting and was free. About half my land is cedar swamp.

At one time I owned a big Ford F-250 pickup truck. Rather than buy a bed cover I used exterior plywood to construct a two piece bed covers. The truck is long gone but one of the big plywood panels remained. It was large enough to cover the cedar pole framework over the well. Everything was sealed up and cracks filled with high expansion foam.

It's good enough for now. Later I'm going to build an access hatch to the well from wood salvaged from the sides of a utility trailer. There's some metal roofing salvaged from a previous project that's going to go over the wood to protect everything. All I had to buy was some decking screws and expansion foam.

One nice surprise was to see how well the old cement work on the top of the well held out. The dug well is loose laid stone on the lower part. The top part is cemented stone. The idea is let the water flow in through the bottom stones. The cemented part is to keep surface water, that hasn't been naturally filtered, from contaminating the well. Good to see that after all these years everything is right where it's supposed to be.

A lot of people are wondering how I'm able to have all the water I need from a well that's only 5.5 feet deep. Most of the people on my side of the lake have deep drilled wells. The big exception is the guy right to the south of me who put his well as close to mine as his property boundary would allow. No dummy him.

I'm a pretty skilled dowser so when I have to hand dig a well I make sure to get the most water from the least amount of digging.

-Sixbears