Dusk and Dawn and things in between.

Sunset on Die Gruene Weide

My brother, Kenny, and I spent a weekend drilling the ground water well. Over two days we descended another 8 feet to a total of 32 feet depth. I plan to drill between 40 and 45 feet. When we started, water stood in the well so I have hope that we've reached the water table.

During the day Saturday we took a break and walked Die Weide photographing flowers which I will post later. I brought my .22 rifle and a bunch of cans to plink at. I've shot targets with the rifle, but this was the first time I've plinked cans in years and it was a lot of fun!

Colorful Clouds at Dusk

 Saturday evening I took advantage of having my Canon Digital Rebel with me along with a 28mm lens to photograph awesome sunset scenes. Subtle and beautiful colors abounded and I shot a lot, of which these were among the best.

Dawn on Die Gruene Weide

Kenny and I slept on cots in the shed and  my thermometer registered 43 degrees upon awaking at 6 a.m. when I jumped up due to nature's call. I then decided to snap a couple of sunrise photos to go with the sunset photos. The photo below shows the work site ready at the dawn for us to fire up the compressor and start drilling again. Kenny made coffee and I made sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast tacos, then by 8:15, the compressor droned, the drill bit whirred, and we started another day of well drilling.

Drilling equipment at dawn - ready for another day.

Annotated Well Drilling Rig

 Later in the day I took a picture of the PVC drilling rig showing the mud line which is about a foot into the hole and at the time about two feet from the 30 foot tape. As recommended by the drill equipment provider, I secured the compressor hose to the PVC pipe every five feet to aid in depth monitoring. The shadows show the picture occurred around 10 a.m. when we stopped to refill the in-line oiler. By the end of the day the mud line had reached the 30' depth tape.

Twine trellis for cucumbers

When Kenny spelled me at drill duties, I did some minor garden chores like stringing up twine trellis for the cucumbers, building tomato cages from left-over fencing material, and securing the grape vines to the wire trellis I built last week. I was surprised to see grapes already growing on the vines. We planted them two years ago so I thought we needed to wait another year before we got grapes.

Grape Vines on trellis

 After finishing the day's drilling the water appeared like a dense soup of water with silt. We used the rock vacuum to suck the soupy sludge out so the silt wouldn't settle to the bottom and make life difficult the next time we drilled. Afterwards, I pointed two flash lights down the hole, which had been vacuumed to a depth of about 15 feet. It looked so well lit, that I decided to attempt to photograph the well hole. It came out great using the 60mm macro lens and a high 800 ISO setting.

Looking down the well hole - perhaps 12 to 15 ft depth.