Drilling the Well and Some Drama

Once we got the initial road into the property, we put a spur off the main road over to the service area where the electrical service is located and where we intended to drill the well.  About 75' mostly north and somewhat east of where we're going to have the Barndaminium, we chose the drilling site to be in close proximity to the power (makes a bit of an "infrastructure cluster").  Also, the area is not in the midst of anything for future expansion.  Nothing else will be built in the area, and it's a bit too woodsy to be used for gardens.

Here's the drilling rig:

Not too big or a machine, but with all the equipment, fully capable of going down a very long ways.  We had a couple of choices.  Either a 5+" hole or an 8+" hole.  A significant difference in diameter and also a difference in price with the larger hole costing about 50% more than the smaller.  But would the smaller support not only the Barndaminium but another house or two plus the various things we want to do for the gardens?  We even consulted a friend here in Australia who is in the irrigation business.  His advice:  drill the larger hole.  So we did.

The first day, they created a slurry pit with this hole and a lot of water:

From what I've been told, part of that hole actually had a very large gopher hole within it, so pouring lots of water into the pit resulted in nothing but water going down the gopher hole.  So they had to move a bit and create another slurry pit for the drilling.

After a number of hours, they had gotten down to 250'.  Adjacent properties had their wells around 350' so we figured that the following morning, after a few hours, they'd be down to the desired depth and be able to add the gravel, screens and finish the top of the well and cap it.

Unfortunately, things didn't go according to plan.  I've not been involved with drilling a well before.  Anytime I've had a property with a well, we always bought the house with the well.  But I've also heard that once you start drilling a well, you generally continue the work until you get to the desired depth, get the result you want and then do the finish work.  Our driller didn't do that.  Instead, he asked our family to keep some water running into the hole all night to keep things moist.  And as those things usually go, the water got turned off and the well driller came on site the following morning to quite a mess.  The hole had largely caved in and there was even some danger that the hole would swallow the drilling rig.  That wouldn't have been very good.

After a number of hours, though, they recovered the work, got back to 250' and continued on through the following night until they got the result they wanted.  It was probably a very long and tough night the second night but we got the result we wanted (mostly).  Here's a picture of the finished well and then I'll have a few words about the aquifer in that part of the world.

And here's a hot of the finished well in proximity to the electrical service from the grid:

The road in the middle is the little spur off the main road.  Power on the right, water on the left.  We'll build a nice shed on the slab around the water pipe with the pressure tank, pump and any other equipment.  We'll also harvest water that comes off the large roof of the Barndaminium (and any other buildings we erect) to hopefully provide all of the water required for gardens.  I would imagine we'll add the equipment and infrastructure to pump this water into this complex as well.

Now to the final comments from the driller.  He said he hadn't drilled a well in this area for a couple of years.  However, the last time he did one (within a mile), he got very good water at 350' and with a pipe of this size of ours, was quite able to sustain about 50 gallons per minute (gpm).  He said that after the recent drought, he was able to get only about 15 gpm.  That's a relatively disappointing amount of water.  While it'll be adequate as we plan to use tanks and use the pump primarily to get water from the aquifer to the tanks, it is still cause for concern.  The other comment the driller made was that he felt the real problem (in addition to the natural problem of the multi-year drought) was that the local peanut farmers were going down 700' with very large pumps and really sucking the aquifer dry in order to irrigate their peanuts.  It's been a pet peeve of mine for years - the planting of water intensive crops in naturally dry areas.  Generally done because there's an unusual source of water available which enables these crops (whether they be rice, cotton, citrus trees, nut trees, or peanuts) to be grown in an area where they should never be planted.  All of these crops are grown in the San Joaquin Valley in California where we once lived because of the large irrigation canals that take water from the snow runoff of the Sierra Nevada mountains to Southern California.  Rice and corn are also grown in some of the driest regions of Australia simply because there's a river nearby that can be tapped for water (much to the distress of other needs of the river).

But that's just my political rant of the day.  What are your thoughts?  Love to year them.  Just put your comments here for all to see and comment further.

Breaking Ground!

After several years of owning the property, making plans, selecting contractors and scheduling activities, we're finally starting construction.  The first step is to get internal roads on the property sufficiently strong to bring well drilling equipment, heavy equipment, concrete trucks and other building equipment onto the site.  That work has begun this week and the following sequence of pictures shows the activity from a grassy path to a sturdy clay-base road.  Once the next phases of construction are done (will be the subject of several more posts), we'll put gravel over the top of the clay base and then put a topping coat of dry cement which will be watered into the gravel making a sturdy surface.  Rather than create the final road, we've simply created a good, solid base for construction purposes and once we have the building in place, we'll put a nice topping on the road.

This is what the road looked like before

And with the clay base installed

Interior of the property.  That clay is sure orange, isn't it?

Side road off towards the electrical boxes.  Well will be off to the left of this picture

View toward the area where the building will be built.

It's all very exciting to me, sitting here in Melbourne, to see progress being made.  Hopefully the well will be drilled over the next couple of weeks and soon, the foundation will be framed, plumbing installed and the slab foundation poured.  Things are really happening!



Learning to Make Cheese

We had a really fun weekend at the Red Hill Cheese Company (on the Mornington Peninsula south of Melbourne).  Along with 9 other (much more highly qualified) students, we are now tending the following types of cheeses:

1.  A pressed mountain-style goat cheese.  This is a young-matured, semi-hard nutty cheese.  We've just taken the cheese from the brine ande it is drying overnight.  We'll be working with this cheese over the next 3 weeks to get it good and matured.
2.  A goat cheese ricotta - made from the whey from the cheese above.  It was ready to eat immediately and we had some of it with our dinner last night.  Terrific!
3.  A soft washed rind goat cheese.  That cheese is draining overnight and I've made up a brine to soak it in tomorrow morning early.  It'll take another week or so before it is ready to try.
4.  A traditional farmhouse goat cheese.  This variety could be eaten as early as tomorrow, but we'll let it mature for a week or so until the rind develops at which point we'll coat with herbs or ash (maybe both as we have a number of these).

Great fun and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.  Our experience was really enhanced because everyone else in the class had great experience, either in making cheese, in making other types of foods, wines, etc.  Or were farmers with a great knowledge of similar skills.  It's great to learn not only from the instructor (the founder of the Red Hill Cheese Company and intensely knowledgeable) but also from our fellow students and we hope to maintain close contact with all as we apply our skills.

Over the next week, we'll compliment the equipment and supplies we already have with additional items, select a few recipes and give those a try perhaps next weekend so that we can immediately take what we've learned (while being helped every step of the way) and applying that knowledge without outside help.  Hopefully most, if not all, of what we do will be edible so that we can continue to refine our skills to the point where we can produce a few very nice products for our own consumption and perhaps the enjoyment of others as well.

The following pictures show our group along with some of the activities we undertook over the past couple of days.