Seven years ago we had a well dug on our cabin property. We were tired of carrying water from our home in Duluth. We had a well dug because it was significantly less expensive than having one drilled.
The digging did not occur very fast because it was rainy and muddy. In fact, I had to pull the well-digger's truck out of the mud with my truck. When it was finally dug we had seven feet of water in a 20-foot well. Wow! We'll never use that much.
We couldn't drink it until it was tested. We had to pump and pump the water to get the chlorine out so that it could be tested. If I remember the test came back negative.
The next time we tested it ourselves and the result was positive. Dump bleach down and then pump and pump. The next test was negative.
Within three years a drought struck and we had less and less water. Finally we gave up on pumping at all. I would stick a measuring tape down the pipe and find there were 21 inches of water. We need three-plus feet to reach the bottom of the pipe. It got so bad that it went down to six inches of water.
One year we had water again but never bother testing it. It was not really clear. We used the water only for washing. Within another year we had no water again.
This spring we had no water to speak of again but later we did. I can't measure the water anymore because the pump is stuck tight to the pipe. We pumped gallons and gallons for washing and for watering flowers and seedlings. Even though there has not been much rain all summer, we were able to have lots of non-drinking water. We never even tried testing this year.
Yesterday, it all changed. I pumped two gallons of water with lots and lots of priming. Then we had only a trickle. It rained a bit overnight, but there will have to be several inches of water before we can pump again.
Maybe, just maybe, if we had spent a lot more for a drilled well we would still have lots of water and drinkable too. People have spent thousands to have a well drilled over 100 feet and the water is erratic or non-drinkable. But one never knows for sure.
