A Hole in the Ground-Maiden Voyage



I seem to be getting worse about blogging, but here I am back again.


There has been quite a bit of stuff going on; some of it funny, some not. But I just am having trouble finding or making a chunk of time to get on the computer.


Anyway. I will blog about today's adventure while it's fresh on my mind.


Hubby has been working on being able to drill wells. He doesn't (I don't think) want to get certified to drill OTHER people's wells, but wants to be able to drill wells on his own property. Anyway. He has had this well drill for several years now and has been working on it off and on as he has time.


Today he had everything set up to poke a hole in the ground out near Windyville on a test run. So we chucked the baby off to her granny's and off we went.


As you can see we are in the middle of a thistle patch; so much so that you can just barely see my husband there at the right of the drill. The green tower is the well drill fully extended. My husband (to give you an idea of height, he's almost 6 foot 2 inches tall) is standing at the control area where there are lots of fun levers and switches to pull and push.


He had drilled down about 6 feet before he went and got me to help him. But at this point he was still drilling down further before my job would start. The red tank at the left is a water tank that is hooked up to the drill. Once you get to a certain point you pump water into the hole to "lubricate" the drill bit. Then you get mud shooting out of the hole. (I wish he'd let me shoot a pic of him AFTER that happened-in this pic you can kind of see it there under the truck.) My job was to pull the mud away from the hole and direct the flow.

He drilled down about 14 feet and was instructing me as to what I needed to do when suddenly there was this massive bang and whoosh and we bothed jumped a mile.

We'd blown an air hose. *sigh* So he will have to fix that tomorrow or next day and we will try to complete the whole deal.

I tell you what though; when you are standing under a monster machine like that and it makes a big bang; you get a real adrenaline rush, that's for sure.

Comments

Anonymous said…
That looks like a lot of fun. Boys and their toys, eh?
September 17, 2008 at 3:34 PM
Unknown said…
Oh my! Can I tell you how much you and your husband remind me of me and my husband!?!?! LOL! :) Except our array of "toys" does not include a well drill. We've got other large equipment on our farm though, and I had to laugh at the bit where you mentioned that BANG!

It's happened here before when we've blown something. Living on a farm and owning equipment...there are ALWAYS lots of repairs that need to be done! Things fall apart or break down on a regular basis here! *sigh*
September 18, 2008 at 1:31 PM
Anonymous said…
I am amazed and astounded!
September 19, 2008 at 11:29 PM
Amrita said…
Wow really good way to drill a well. In India we have those machines, but they are very expensive to hire, so we dug our well the old fashioned way as you musthave seen on my blog.

Show us the well after its been done.
September 20, 2008 at 12:39 AM
moe said…
Hey CK: how do you "pull mud" away from a hole? I have been unsuccessfully trying to picture that part.
I love thistles. Aren't artichokes a form of thistle?
September 20, 2008 at 8:52 PM
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