Adios Wellhouse

A fine weekend overall, much of which I’ve already gone into.

THEBOY and I destroyed the wellhouse yesterday. That is, we had a shack in the back yard that housed the pump apparatus and the opening to the well. I’m told a subterranean river runs through our neighborhood, and sure enough, if you peer the 25-or-so feet down this shaft you can see water. Years ago I made some feeble attempts to get the pump working and nearly gave myself heat stroke in the process.

So I’ll seal the opening and build a storage shed over it.

The well house was rotting pretty badly, so it didn’t put up much of a fight. THEBOY was out there with his favorite hammer, smashing everything he could. We each got bruised and scratched up, but he was a gamer. I tried to keep as much protection on him as I could. He was good with the goggles, but the gloves were way too big, and he dumped them after a while.

‘Twas a bit of a challenge to keep an eye on him around all those rusty screws and such, but we had no ER-worthy accidents.

***

The heat stroke episode still seems strange to me. It was one of those incredibly hot summer days, and I was determined to get that pump working. 100 degrees or better, and I was squatting down in the wellhouse, working away. I was shirtless, and the sweat ran off my nose in a pretty constant drip. I didn’t care much, because I thought I was close to getting it to work.

I stopped to consider something, and I suddenly realized the sweat was no longer dripping off my nose. I ran a hand through my hair. Dry. Armpits were dry too. I had a look at myself and realized there wasn’t a drop of moisture on me. That was a really strange sensation in the extreme heat. I stood up, a bit dizzy, and called it a day. Needless to say, I drank a hell of a lot of water after that.

***

The sun is peeking through the clouds and lunch time approaches… not bad, not bad…