Well Slab, Arrowhead Hunting, and Gardening on the Home Front

Floating in the Slab 

Saturday morning we framed, dug in, and leveled a 4 ft x4 ft frame for the concrete slab around the well casing. Then we mixed several bags of quickcrete and poured the slab. This was the first slab I've poured so I naturally scratched my initials and the year after it dried some. Who knows who will see JEG in the slab some day far in the future and wonder who that was. A hand pump will arrive in the next week or two and I watched a video to see that it's easy enough to install. It's convertible to 12Volt motorized for when I set up automated water control systems I have in mind. I'll, of course, post a few pictures when we install it. I calculated a rough recharge rate of 5 gallons per minute based on the 8 gallons per minute pump-out rate and how long it took to empty the well.

I dropped my cork and string down the well and measured the static level at 15 ft, 6 inches which is a six foot gain over last week's measurement of 21 ft 8 inches. I attribute the water gain to the rain we got last week. While at work I saw dark clouds in the right direction so I pulled up KXAN radar to see a storm passing over the land.  It's hit or miss if radar actually pans out to rain on the ground, but our garden gage showed 9/10th inch of rain from the storm and the rain appears to percolate surprisingly well through this blackland clay soil to raise the static water table. Our water harvest tank was just 30 gallons shy of full too so there may have been more than an inch of rain given the tank was down to about 100 gallons last week.

Wheelbarrow full of Arrowhead Hunting Gear 

 After pouring concrete and eating sandwiches for lunch we quickly knocked together a sifting screen from 2x4's and hardware cloth and loaded the wheelbarrow with it along with shovels and water to try our hand at arrowhead hunting. Kenny and I have talked about hunting for arrowheads but never taken the time to gear up and seriously search for artifacts until now. With the well drilled we'll have more recreation time. Well drilling turned out to be full time work with little time for fun except for toasting exceptional sunsets with a few beers on our campouts.

I wheeled our gear across the pasture to the north fence path expecting easy going but found the wind storm our neighbors told us of two weeks ago had knocked two trees down across the fence and path. I'll need to fire up the chain saw to clear the path again. Fortunately, the donkey blazed a new path around the obstruction.

Apparent Tool 

We decided to start digging about 10 ft inside the north fence in the creek bed. First we cleared bigger rocks from the dig site and one rock kenny tossed caught my eye as it rolled over the growing pile of rocks. I snagged it and found the above rock that fits sweetly in the fist with a perfect thumb sized notch at the top and the rounded tip protruding below the fist. It is too perfect a fit and function not to be a tool someone created from an excellent stone find. Even without the notch it feels very nice in the hand, but the notch placement can't be an accident!

Kenny Digging at First Creek Bed Site

We dug about 18 inches deep or so and sifted a lot of rocks over about 16 sq ft. We found a a lot of flint chunks and chips but we didn't encounter an arrowhead. I started loading my pockets with pretty colorful rocks found in the sifter. I plan to clean the rocks and get a nice looking shallow bowl to show them in. After about two hours of digging at the first location we moved up-creek and dug under a wash-out around a sharp bend, then we dug in the pile of rocks that gathered just past the washout. Still no arrowheads.

Pocket Full Of Rocks - Cleaned Up for Display. See if you can spot the three petrified wood rocks.

I remember my paternal grandparents used to dig and sift creek beds around Sweetwater, Texas for arrowheads and they had a huge collection of the points as a result. They displayed their harvest in wood cases with glass fronts that contained everything from tiny bird points to huge axe heads. I know this area should have a few but I don't know how many yards one has to dig per arrowhead. However, being an optimist, I expect to find a point with every shovel full of dirt! Y'all will hear me hooting all the way to Austin the day I find a genuine arrowhead on Die Manchmal Gruene Weide!

Sunday morning I replaced the seriously dinged mower blade and mowed. It was so pleasant for a August weekend that I decided to harvest the compost heaps and spread the resulting fertile detritus on our raised beds. Then I tackled the task of harvesting the worm compost bins as well which also augmented raised bed soil as well as the grape vine and the lemon and grapefruit trees in planters.