Oh WELL... (part 1)

Oh WELL… (part 1)

Drilling for water is a very interesting and unpredictable process. After I posted the part about my Dad being able to divine for water, my Aunt Barb let me know that my Grandfather could do it as “well.” No pun intended. Neither are with us physically but I kept asking for their guidance in picking the right spot to drill. I didn’t trust myself to have been passed along the dowsing gene and to be the one to say, “Drill here.” I was hoping that my sister, Jane, would visit before we started drilling because she seems to be very kinesthetically attuned and good at using her pendulum to find things. She didn’t get a chance to visit the property before we started drilling; darn.

For those who may not know, the process of divining or dowsing has been used since the 15^th century to find metal. We were using it to find water. Here are a few web sites if you are interested in learning more about it.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing & http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Dowsing.aspx  

When we submitted our sit plan to Buncombe County for approval they suggested putting the well to the north side of the house, just off the road and a specific distance from the drain field and septic tank (smart!). We decided to move the well to the south side of our house so it would be between our motor home and house. This way we could get water to both “easily” (everything underground is proving to be a bit of a challenge with so much rock).

Several days before the drill arrived, Jim saw David walking around the property with a stick in his hand. As Jim got closer he could tell David was divining or dowsing for water. David said they call it Witching. He showed him how the twig he was holding would point to the ground as he walked over a certain area and he predicted that an underground stream was running through this area of our property. Cool! And how fortunate for us because where David indicated was pretty much were we hoped to find water.

I was fascinated with watching David witch for water so I asked him to show me. I got a quick lesson and gave it a shot.

They "Y" part of the stick in my palms, fingertips holding stick, turn writst up so stick is parallel to ground, thumbs out - oops, my thumbs aren't out!

My twig didn’t turn down as much as David’s but Jim and I were convinced that we would find water if we drilled in this spot.