Monday, June 07, 2010

Slow water

They'll resume work in the morning, first to recheck the rate of water flow. At day's end on Friday, at a depth of 440 feet, we were getting about 2.5 gallons/minute, half of what's recommended. We might be able to get by, but the pump would have to work harder, shortening its life.
One option is to keep drilling. Our neighbor across the cove reached a good flow at 520 or so. (Another lakeside resident was getting 15 gallons/minute at 150 feet. It's tempting to run a pipe along the lake bottom to his well.)
The other option is hydro-fracture, also known as hydro-frac or fracking. In brief, the crew would pump pressurized water back down the hole. The pressurized water fractures the rock around the veins that are feeding the well, increasing the rate of water flow.
This seems like a lot of work (and money) to get water when we're right beside a lake. The lake water, as good as it is, however, is susceptible to a number of biological processes resulting from human, animal, and plant activities, particularly during the warmer periods of summer.  This project is worth it, allowing us to have a reliable supply of good drinking water.
I just hope we don't find oil.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Future of News, Phillipston-style

While the print and broadcast news media wrestle flail in paroxysms of poverty as Google and Twitter steal their lunch money, the good folk of Phillipston bring the important information directly to the people.
(Editor's note: at this writing, I've not been able to confirm our news source, but I suspect that it's Claire.)

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Posted By RoasterBoy to Hakkarainen Clipping Service at 5/29/2010 03:45:00 AM

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

"More than one more thing"

From the Phillipston OntheCommon.com blog: "More than one more thing"

Monday, August 03, 2009

OntheCommon.com - not even for ducks

OntheCommon.com: "Around six in the morning, you can hear the planes as start to follow Route 2 on their approach to Logan Airport. On Sunday morning, we couldn't see them, though. We couldn't even see Queen Lake's other shore, the fog was so thick."

Saturday, July 25, 2009

We got a gadget

That sound that you hear is Huck scratching his head, wondering what his camp has come to.

The gadget is a MiFi™2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot, a personal wifi hotspot that connects to VerizonWireless's network, giving you, at best, speeds comparable to DSL.
So, no wires (phone line or cable), and Internet at decent speeds out here at the end of a dirt road, a road deep with puddles from last night's rain and yesterday's rain and rain that we haven't seen since the time of Noah.
But, we got the Intertubes.