Today was the last sunny day we're going to have for a while, according to the forecast.  We walked fairly early this morning, but not before the temperature had risen too high for me to be happy walking.  Now we're expecting rain and much cooler weather - perhaps we'll have to turn the heat on or build a wood fire again.  It's been a while.

This is a picture of the brook just past the big field where the horses are (below).  This brook's origin is a spring at the house where I grew up on the Plain.  Our household water came from that spring.  My father had built a cement foundation around the area where water bubbled out of the the earth among mounds of clean sand.  He arranged an overflow pipe that kept the water about 10 inches deep.  It was clear and cold.  There was a wire with a hook to hang the gallon can on so the cold water came about half way up the can.  There were shelves and baskets for more items that needed to be kept cool, like lemonade and homemade root beer.  We didn't have a refrigerator - we really didn't need it with the spring.  Before each meal, someone would go to the spring to get the milk and butter and whatever else was needed.  There was a path leading to the spring through the tall grass a short distance from the house, and it always smelled fresh, like clover.  After the field was hayed, it had a different smell, and there were crickets and grasshoppers for company.  It was always cool in the spring house.  There were four very tall poplar trees surrounding the spring, and below, where the water ran from the overflow in a little brook to a culvert under the road, there were forget-me-nots and wild mint and cowslips growing.

There was another spring below ours, on the opposite side of the road , and that had a wooden enclosure and cement walls, too.  Below that spring was the ram that pumped water up the hill to the farm.  (This picture on the left looks a lot like I remember our ram.)  That second spring supplied all the water needs of the farm, including the cattle, and was the closest thing to perpetual motion I can think of.  It pumped continuously, rain, shine, wind, snow, freezing weather - well, almost continuously.  There were a few bitterly cold winter nights when the ram stopped, for whatever reason, and my father would be out with his gasoline blowtorch and hot water, trying to thaw it out or prime the thing to get it started.  I don't think it ever quit in the summer.  It always seemed to happen in the darkest hours of the coldest nights.  There were storage tanks in the house and the barn, but even though they seemed large, when the ram stopped, the reserve wouldn't last very long, and the cattle had to have water. 


Anyway, those two springs, and probably a number of other smaller ones along the brook, are the source of that brook that eventually runs into Joe's Pond.  There were always trout in the lower regions of the brook, where there were large pools and deep overhanging banks as the brook got larger.  It drained a large portion of land coming off the Plain.  

I don't suppose anyone uses those springs now.  I'm sure the houses that covered them are gone, and probably the cement walls around them, as well.  I expect drilled wells have replaced both springs.  I imagine folks who are off the grid use hydraulic rams today.  What is the saying?  "Everything old is new again."