Posted By FarmerJ on January 1, 2011

Is this not the most gorgeous green hunk of iron cast into the shape of a faucet you’ve ever seen?  It truly is a thing of beauty.  Why is it a thing of beauty, you ask?

Because, out of this faucet comes water ~ precious, clear liquid gold!  This faucet is attached to a well.

A well that produces cool, refreshing water!  A well that provides a vital resource for all living creatures!

Okay, okay.  Before you think my mind disappeared with 2010, I’ll fill you in on a few details.  My favorite place in the whole wide world is Rancho Perdido.  Rancho Perdido is our 24-acre hideaway located amidst the tall pines at nearly 8,000 ft elevation in west central New Mexico.  Rancho Perdido is where I think of when I hear get-away, or peace and tranquility, or retirement.  Rancho Perdido is where I want to grow old.

Rancho Perdido is where Darling Husbie, the boys and I would spend every moment we possibly could from July, 2006 through September, 2007.  We had plans to first build a pole barn to store equipment and materials, and then we would begin building our cabin.  We realized early on that all of our tasks ~ or at least most of them ~ would be easier with access to water.  When you’re at Rancho Perdido, you’re pretty much on your own.  The dirt road to access Rancho Perdido is 7 miles from the nearest town, if you can consider a Y in the road with a convenient store and a modular post office a town.  Then, Rancho Perdido is 13 miles down that dirt road.

Anyway, back before God had revealed His plan for us to move to Nebraska, we were diligent in our efforts to make Rancho Perdido a little more hospitable and it a little more feasible to actually get some building done.  So, in late August, 2007, we met the local ~ local being 45 miles away ~ well driller and his wife at Rancho Perdido.  There were some things we needed to discuss, like where we wanted the well.  That was easy.  Where ever there’s going to be water, of course!  That’s where the driller’s wife came in.  She walked around with her witching rods in hand and pinpointed the exact location.  It wasn’t exactly where we had in mind, but if that’s where she said the water was, well, then, that’s where the well will be, by golly!  Watching her with those witching rods was truly an incredible sight to see.  She let me try it ~ I was a believer.  She even let the non-believer (ah-hem, Husbie) try it.  It works.

So, yeah.  Back to the faucet that gorgeous hunk of iron painted green.  Labor Day Weekend, 2007: the drilling truck, a flatbed truck loaded with 20′ pipe and a crew of three arrive at Rancho Perdido.  This was it!  This was either going to make us or break us.  Literally.  If we came up with a dry hole, we were going to be broke.  Well, we broke the piggy bank either way ~ we’d much prefer to have water as a result, you know?

With every spin of the drill bit, I could hear cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching.  And, no.  That wasn’t the sound of the chain drive.  That was the sound of dollars.  Finally, at 180 feet, the drill head was pushing out water!  Sa-weet!  They continued to drill another 20 feet for good measure ~ rather, for lack of me knowing the technical reasoning behind drilling deeper ~ and then we saw the beauty of our very own water being pumped out gallon after gallon…all under the power of the driller.  We were stoked.

And, then we moved.  Far, far away from my beloved Rancho Perdido.  We couldn’t go back until May, 2008.  But, we weren’t equipped to run the well pump.  It would be almost another 2-1/2 years before we could return to Rancho Perdido.  We visited in November, 2010 ~ this time, well equipped!  [Ha!  Pun.]

We showed up with this bad boy.  It’s the ability to run the 240 electric thingy-ma-bee-bee that’s the key.  The little generator we had with us in 2008 couldn’t handle it.

Darling Husbie also wired this up.  It’s the ‘On – Off’ switch.  [Just in case you were still wondering after looking at the photo.]

Some friends of ours actually visited Rancho Perdido during the summer of 2009 with their horses.  They left their water trough behind for future uses.  So hey, JY, if you’re looking for your water trough, look over by the well head.  Husbie decided to use it as a temporary shelter until our next visit when we can build a proper little well house.

Hopefully now you can see why a green faucet means so much to me, and you’re no longer considering advising Husbie to check for fever because I’d gone mad.  While we’re at the Ranch, do you want to see a few more pictures Husbie took while we were there in November?

This is our current lodging facilities.  It’s our 28-foot house on wheels that permanently resides at the Ranch.  It’s got a smaller than full size bed at the rear, so Husbie hangs off at about the knee caps.  It’s got a nice potty room with the cutest little bathtub.  It’s got a proper little kitchen.  The dining room table and bench seats make out into a bed.  And, the couch folds out into a bed.  The front half of the trailer has a slide-out, too, so that really helps with space.  It accommodates the four of us, plus the two canines just fine.  Well, except that whole Husbie hanging off the bed at the knee caps thing.  But, he’s an Army boy.  He’s slept in worse conditions than the Casita de Rancho Perdido!

This area is where the fire pits are.  It’s where we do our gathering when it’s time to relax and take in all the amazing sights, sounds and smells Rancho Perdido has to offer.  It’s located just beyond the front of the ‘lodge’ under one of the neatest Alligator Juniper trees you’ll ever see.  I’m not sure why we have the two different fire pits.  The rock one was there when we purchased the property.  We took the metal one up there.  Perhaps one is for when we want to be more rugged, and the other is for when we want to be more civilized.  Or, perhaps we have two fire pits because I’m married to a pyro and one fire just isn’t enough.

This is just a shot of the well and gorgeous green faucet we are so excited about from the viewpoint of about where the fire pits are.  If you look closely, you can see the white pipe sticking up way back there just before the trees start to thicken out again.

We have some more exciting news about Rancho Perdido, but that will come later.  Thanks for visiting the Ranch with us!  Isn’t that a cool faucet, though?  ♥

Categories: Prairie Playtime
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