Water Flows

Hope springs eternal.

Springs. Why do you suppose the word "springs" was chosen there?
Spring like the season?
Or spring, like water.

Hope flows like water. It seems effortless sometimes. When hope dries up, it's like a well going dry. In a way, water is hope, and hope is water.

Our valley is FULL of water! So much so, that there is a well (many locals are wholly familiar) that runs, just up the road from our house. People come regularly to get water. Some people call it "Jesus's Fountain," perhaps because no one really knows how long it's been there.
Turns out that well was an important piece to how the farm here was once managed.

Imagine, farming before electric and running water.
How?

Milking by hand is a given, naturally.
But once milk is collected, it has to be kept cold to prevent bacteria from forming. That may have been the only thing that was easier in winter - but how did dairy farmers do it in the summer?
With water.
At our old barn, there was a trough of water that cans of milk were sunk into to keep the milk cold. Sometimes, according to Uncle Hank, the water would "fail." So they took their cans of milk to the well down the road. At that time, there was a big trough here. Milk would be kept cold in cans in the trough here overnight.

If you've ever lugged a milk can around, you know they are not light. It doesn't get any better, once they are filled with milk! Horses surely pulled the cans by wagon to the trough, but you still had to get them on and off the wagon, and lowered into the trough, and then back out again.

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Thanks so much for your time reading this post! Work to begin restoring our old barn will begin this spring. To join or share the cause, please visit gf.me/u/w9mhpd