Watching and learning

Yesterday morning, Robert Dawson arrived at the Monroe Creek RV Park to drill a water well. He ferried in two trucks with flat bed trailers loaded with equipment and his well-drilling rig which was an awesome piece of equipment. He had assistance getting the trucks to the park, but once he started he did all the work on his own.

We started watching the entire operation from the rig, but eventually I went outside to take some pictures of the process. I found the well drilling rig itself fascinating in the sense that someone had engineered a piece of equipment that handled picking up pieces of pipe, storing 25 foot sections of drilling shafts and the bits and all the hydraulics necessary to spin the bits into the ground. Have you ever thought about the complexity of the equipment in factories and the jobs they handle? What amazes me is the idea of the type of brain it took to invent and build the various machines we use to make our lives easier. But I digress...

After a few feet of clay Robert hit blue shale which isn't a good type of rock to hit if you're looking for water. On a break, he came over to talk to me and explained some of the drilling process and what he'd be doing. I asked him if he used dowsers to search for water and if he had one that could "guesstimate" the depth of the water table. The answer was yes and yes, although he doesn't like to use the "guesstimater" as then his clients expect water to be found at precisely that level and of course life doesn't work that way. He hit water here at 25 feet but it was not the amount he was looking for. He explained that seven miles down the road he had drilled a well that produced 22 gallons of water a minute which is a good well. By the end of the day he hadn't found the level of water he wanted.

This morning Robert inserted a pipe for support of the sides of the well and had to weld another section on for continued drilling. Obviously, you have to be a bit of a "jack-of-all-trades" for this job. As the morning wore on we watched as he added 25 foot section after 25 foot section of drilling shaft to dig deeper. It seems that the initial gush of water I photographed this morning was simply water that had pooled at the bottom of the well and not a good supply of water. He finally stopped at 300 feet to consult with the campground owners to see if they wanted him to continue drilling further or try a new spot. I guess they are going to consider some type of new survey service to see if they can get a better idea of where water might be on the property. So we won't be able to see the finishing process of creating a well as Robert will just put a temporary cap on this one until the owners decide how they are going to proceed. What a lot of work for a gallon and a half flow of water per minute.