Found a spring!

[O.S.O.K.]

As some of you here know, I've recently purchased some land and Tuesday, on the way back home from visiting family up north, the wife and I made a detour to meet with a water conservation guy (happens to be our neighbor!) to determin a pond location and homesite spot.

Well, as we were exploring the backside of where we planned to put the levy and make a pond, we found a nice little spring gurgling out of the hillside. :D This is very good as it will provide a constant replenishment for the pond - basically to combat surface evaporation. The main source of water for the pond is run-off from rains.

The area around this property holds many ponds, as-does the greater surrounding area - typically, if you have the drainage, you can have a pond.

I am really pumped about our land and while I don't look forward to having to move all of our stuff, I am looking forward to getting it all accomplished.

We decided to go ahead and put our current home up for sale, as we are worried about waiting until next spring (economic conditions) and well, we have a couple wanting to purchase already - they are moving here and taking teaching jobs and just waiting to hear about the jobs. My wife is a teacher though and has some inside info and says they'll be hired.... so looks like we have it sold. This releases the equity in the home for use to use to begin building our new place.

We'll be moving into a rental house in the mean time. There are plenty of these locally to choose from, as homes in general here aren't selling.

Anyway, the spring was a cool discovery and I'm really looking forward to further explorations :) Maybe we'll find some more!

[sevlex]

I envy you!

:thumbspbig:

[old Grump]

Are you going to test it. The best drinking water I ever had came from a spring above a house I was renting right after I got out of the Navy. The owner had sunk a pipe into it and let it run free down about 30' to the house, no pump needed. Even when it was 26 below it never froze, the snow over it kept it from getting that cold.

[ATAK, Inc.]

Way cool OSOK!

I hope all your plans come to fruition as soon as possible!

[Eric]

Awesome! I hope to one day get a nice piece of land like that. Congratulations man.

[El Duce]

Very cool!

[El Laton Caliente]

Have you thought RV instead of rental? You end up with something for the money and it can be used as a guest house or for vactions or sold when the new place is finished...

[O.S.O.K.]

Thanks guys. Lot of work as said, but we're motovated!


Are you going to test it. The best drinking water I ever had came from a spring above a house I was renting right after I got out of the Navy. The owner had sunk a pipe into it and let it run free down about 30' to the house, no pump needed. Even when it was 26 below it never froze, the snow over it kept it from getting that cold.

Unfortunately, this spring is located too low and far back on the hill. Don't think we didn't think about tapping into it for water! Also, I guess it would probably work to slowly fill a cistern or something but it's not moving very fast - maybe 3 gallons/minute estimate...

We just didn't know about it's existence - not shown on the maps at all...

[O.S.O.K.]

Have you thought RV instead of rental? You end up with something for the money and it can be used as a guest house or for vactions or sold when the new place is finished...


Yeah, still thinking about that too.

We're batting ideas around - including maybe just having a "core" home built that we can move into immediately and then do add-ons over time. My wife would design it such that the add-ons would be planned and the layout set-up for that.

We would also only have it roughed out - and we will do all finish work. We've got the tools and experience to do that.

[old Grump]

If nothing else you now know where to set up your deer stand. Birds and critters are using that hole unless they have a huge amount of water so close by that they don't need it.

[O.S.O.K.]

There's water all over the place - there's a small creek running further back on the property too. There's sign all over the property - I won't have any trouble finding a deer this fall/winter :)

This area and Mississippi in general is just covered up in deer. Really. The season goes from September to the end of January - limit is one deer per day! There are a lot of hunters there too and the laws are very lax (like you can use a single shot 38+ caliber centerfire rifle during muzzle loader seasn) but the land is so productive that they are still considered to be in an overpopulated condition - year after year.

My property is surrounded on three sides by more forested land that all looks like this:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2687/5802766150_e45c341fd7.jpg

It's loaded with yummy deer food - there was a bumper crop of blackberries which are all over the property for example. Food, water and cover like this are very very productive whitetail habitat.

[JVD]

Nothing beats ice cold spring water!


nice looking land there.

[Schuetzenman]

Thanks guys. Lot of work as said, but we're motovated!



Unfortunately, this spring is located too low and far back on the hill. Don't think we didn't think about tapping into it for water! Also, I guess it would probably work to slowly fill a cistern or something but it's not moving very fast - maybe 3 gallons/minute estimate...

We just didn't know about it's existence - not shown on the maps at all...

3 gallons per minute is 180 per hour. That's 4,320 per 24 hour day and in 5 days that's 21,600 gallons. A month would be 129,600 gallons! You should be able to do something with all that! I think you should put in a Cement Pond and use this spring to fill it.

[coppertales]

Next thing we will hear about is the still you will build next to the spring......chris3

[O.S.O.K.]

Yeah, I was thinking of that... :lool:

And I am sure we will have the snakes yes. Though, I have yet to see one.

Here in Texas, when we had our acreage, we saw a lot of them...

And I am wondering if maybe I shouldn't tap into the spring - if it would have enough pressure to push the water uphill some to a cistern and hook that into the house - with overflow then going down into the pond. Just capture the water for our home use and then allow most of it to continue into the pond... hmmm.

[Ronwicp]

I have a few here too. The old guys used to dig holes and let them fill up for the cows. But we dont have cows now, so I guess its my SHTF water.

[Ronwicp]

Oh, if you plan to use it for drinking water all the time I would have it tested.

[stinker]

And I am wondering if maybe I shouldn't tap into the spring - if it would have enough pressure to push the water uphill some to a cistern and hook that into the house - with overflow then going down into the pond. Just capture the water for our home use and then allow most of it to continue into the pond... hmmm.
Off grid solar power just big enough to run a small pump for pressure and keep just enough car batteries charged to have pressure 24/7.
Cheap power and easy maintenance. Win win.