In our valley, there is a stream of water that we used to fill our 40,000-liter water storage. However, because it was an extremely dry year, the stream quickly dried up. As a result, we had to take water from the natural reservoir, which is fed by a spring and is the source of the stream on our land. Unfortunately, the reservoir also dried up, leaving the remaining water dirty and smelly.
The source of the water is on our neighbor’s land, and luckily, it was still flowing, providing super clear water. We have very kind neighbors, and they offered us the opportunity to connect directly to their spring.
Before this was possible, there was some work to be done. The spring and the surrounding area had not been maintained for years. To access it, we first had to prune a significant amount of vegetation. With the help of volunteers, it took an afternoon’s work to finally reach the spring and see how the system was set up.
Around the spring, a concrete pipe was installed to prevent contamination of the water. This is connected to a filtration system. From there, a 70mm pipe carries the water to the neighbors’ well, which holds about 1,000 liters and has an overflow for excess water. We decided to connect the pipe to their overflow, ensuring their system was not disturbed. They always have 1,000 liters, and we get the excess.
To get the water to our land, a pipe had to be laid from the overflow across their land to ours. Most of this went through fields, but we also had to cut through dense reeds and blackberry bushes. After that, a digging machine came to create the trench. There was some concern since the neighbors have a septic tank “somewhere,” though no one knew exactly where the pipes were. Fortunately, we didn’t hit them.
Now, 100 meters of 63mm pipe leads to our land. For now, we continued with a 32mm pipe to our 40,000-liter water storage, which was already in place. In the future, we plan to extend the 63mm pipe to get even more water to our side, filling the natural pond and irrigating the land.
To be continued…
