January 5, 2009
Well, well, well
…listen
…about the musicDeep!
I am hoping that the small handful of human neighbors and the multitude of deer, foxes and raccoons within earshot of my property will forgive me for what happened today. I apologize to them all and trust that their upper partial hearing will indeed return in the near future after their little furry ears stop ringing.
A well was drilled.
Into bedrock.
Imagine what that might sound like.
I was fascinated that the house, only yards away, did not shake a millimeter throughout this ordeal. Really, a bore-deal, I suppose. The whole process is amazing. Just the thought of bearing down, down, down into the crust of the earth to gain access to precious fluids within is quite something. Rather sensual in metaphor, even. In some places on the island wells go down 700 or more feet. Ours will probably find water around 150, maybe sooner; not much further. In this case, less is definitely more.
I am slightly conflicted. There’s the positive aspect of tapping into the earth’s resource and being self-sufficient and off the grid (as we already are; just on a community well rather than one of our own until now). But then there’s an uncomfortable feeling of physically invading the orb, even just a small bit. Happily, a small bit is exactly what is used: the bore is only inches wide.
I admit that it’s unsettling to see huge machinery in the middle of one’s wooded bliss. As the truck bed and crane passed by my kitchen window I was immediately dwarfed; the scale of everything around me suddenly became tiny and the the red monster loomed larger than I could have imagined. My snapshots don’t do it justice. Watching the driver thread not one, but two enormous trucks in between hundreds of closely congregated shore pines and Doug firs was worthy of an Olympic event. The judges would give him a 6.0 across the board. Heck, I can’t even parallel park a moped.
And, in a final tip to the thankfully past-tense potential embarrassment of U.S. leadership: Drill baby, drill!
Glenn Buttkus said,
January 6, 2009 @ 7:38 am
Great pics! Looking at the first one, before reading on, I feared that your sanctuary had been invaded by government thugs. 700 feet is quite a well, I must say. Are there aquafirs under you? Will the water be drinkable, or will you have to “process” it? I guess they charge by the foot for their drilliing services. Keep us current as to the actual depth of your sipping pipe. Did this drilling company have to bring its heavy equipment all the way over from America, or is there a home base on the islands, since so many have to drill for water?
Your musical clip, DeepclipLL@1:53 went way deeper than the driller’s bits, to a place of darkness beyond measure, where huge creatures without color exist, blind, maws agape living on whatever is in their travel path. Another great musical moment from the mind of Shapiro.
How goes ALEXTRONICA? We have not heard any more lyrics on the site for a time. Sorry the foot of snow had to go bye-bye. I know you enjoyed it so; and you were welcome to it. Are there any hills of merit on San Juan? It is the hills that stall us out here on the mainland. Ice is not our friend.
Glenn
zenfull said,
January 7, 2009 @ 2:42 pm
Hi Alex,
Have you hit water yet? How far did they have to drill? Do the island wells have a lot of minerals? Is your local community well expensive or are you just wanting to be more off the grid? Really enjoy your blog and music!
Glenn Buttkus said,
January 8, 2009 @ 8:15 am
Considered building an ark yesterday. Man, that was a LOT of rain. Orting evacuated, part of Fife, but Sumner dodged the bullet. The Shapiro magic held strong, though. There was a rain shadow over Whidbey and the San Juans. How did you arrange that?
Glenn
Doug said,
January 8, 2009 @ 1:53 pm
Water?
You want water?
You want MORE water.
You’re paying MONEY for more water?
Alex Shapiro said,
January 9, 2009 @ 2:32 am
Ah, so much curiosity on this event!
Working backward: yes, we want MORE water– we were not affected at all by the awful flooding 120 miles to the south in mainland America. We are The Blessed People of The Olympic Rain Shadow, remember?
As for the drilling, we were extremely fortunate. Wells can be crap shoots, and you can spend a lot of money to dig an impressive… and bone dry… hole in the ground. Happily, at 100 feet we hit water, and by 140 feet they stopped because we were getting a strong and steady supply of great quality stuff. Hooray. Double hooray because yes, the charges go up substantially depending on how deep they have to go. We told them to keep going until they hit oil, so that we could afford a better grade of kibble for Moses and Smudge, but that just didn’t happen.
This big machinery resides here on the island with the company that does these wells. Our little community well is getting older, and while we’re still on it for the time being, it’s good for a home to have its own. As for minerals, yes, I’m pretty sure there are some in the aquifer here, and one of the cool by-products of the drilling is that there’s a nice pile of beautiful, greenish shale from the drilled bedrock that we’ll be using to do more landscaping and hardscaping with. Very organic and wonderful, and nice to use every bit of the Earth that we visited down below.
“Alextronica” isn’t the CD of songs– it’s a disc of electroacoustic works and since it’s self-produced, it keeps taking a back burner to the current projects I’m doing. But the disc WILL get done this year! I’ve been putting off finishing it for too long. And yes, there will be more songs coming soon, as well, and I’ll post those for fun!
Barry said,
January 9, 2009 @ 10:24 pm
Glad you struck water!
What a blessing. So, does it just flow or is there a pump? My water comes out of the tap. So much for knowing how it works.
You’ll keep us posted on how it tastes compared to the current supply, I hope.
Have a brilliant weekend one and all.