Water Witching

I thought I had blogged before about Witching Water but I was searching through blog posts and I couldn't find a thing so I guess not. 

Water Witching or Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, gravesites, and many other objects and materials (Wikipedia) 

I remember when I was a kid back in the late 1980's our well went dry and an older guy from the well drillers came out one day to take a look at where they'd drill the new well. I remember we were in the back yard and he walked over to a maple tree and broke off a forked branch. To me, it looked like he walked around the backyard with this stick pointing out in front of him and every once in a while it would bounce up and down. After a bit he told me mom where they would drill and how many feet deep the water was. He was only five feet off when they actually drilled. I was AMAZED! 

Fast forward to this past week in Oklahoma. My parents, brothers and sister came to southern Oklahoma to visit our brother Mountain Man and we joined them on Wednesday. I had always heard that our youngest brother, who we affectionately call Mater, could witch water but I'd never seen it. He is a lot younger than me after all and just a young pup at 21 years old. 

We had been walking in the backyard and Mountain Man was pointing out where the ground had been disturbed to place a drain from his washing machine. I asked Mater if he could show me how to witch it. He proceeded to pick up two semi straight sticks off the ground and walk across the drain. 

Those two sticks crossed just like that. I made him do it a couple of times and I watched carefully. He held them really loosely and he wasn't moving them at all. Those sticks moved all on their own. 

Not everyone can witch water I learned. Dad can't do it but Mom can, but only with wire. Dad cut a wire hanger and shaped it into two L shapes and we were trying it out with that. 

I was kind of bummed at first when I tried it with the sticks and nothing happened but I was absolutely tickled when I tried it with the wires and they crossed for me right over the disturbed ground. 

My sister Officer could do it with the wires too. 

Later on that day we all walked to an old cemetery with missing stones. As we walked across certain areas the wires crossed and uncrossed at regular intervals indicating unmarked graves beneath our feet. 

Cool!! 

When my mom, sister and I used the wires to walk over the disturbed ground the ends of the wires only crossed a little. Whereas for Mater, when he used the wires, they practically crossed so far they slapped his chest. Mountain Man remarked sarcastically that Mater could balance a penny on his finger and make it spin witching water. I'm not altogether sure he isn't right about that. Mater must have water, or dirt, running through his veins. 

I haven't a clue as to why some people can do it and some can't. It's one of those old time skills that not too many folks know about any more. I sure wish I'd thought of it and taken a video! 

WATER BOMBS!!

Kansas summer has already arrived in the SW part of our state. The temps have been in the 90's for most of the last week or so. Curses to the heat because our town pool isn't open yet!! 

How to cool off? Even though we've received rain this spring the Ogalalla Aquifer levels have been dropping for the last three years, at least, so I don't want to go wasting a lot of water just to cool off. I've become quite the water miser since living in Kansas. 

I found the instructions here to make these sponge ball water bombs at home from regular old kitchen sponges. All you need are sponges and zip ties! Yip and Yap cut up the sponges for me and I ziptied them all together while they were searching the garage for buckets. All together we had these put together in 10 minutes tops! They're cheap, they're durable and they're LOTS of fun! Best of all we didn't use a whole lot of water while playing with these, two buckets kept us busy for an hour. 

We only had yellow sponges at our little grocery but that didn't detract from the fun! 

Yahoo only wanted to sit in the water while her brothers attacked each other and me! 

Trust me, I was plenty wet after an hour of playing! 

Ha ha! The t-shirts didn't last long. 

Yip kept yelling as he threw the bombs, "Who's the king now?" 

Not sure what that was all about. 

I'm thinking these will be a lot of fun in the pool this summer too! 

Has your summer started yet? How are you cooling off? Or how are you planning to once summer does arrive? 

Flood Irrigation in Kansas

While most fields are watered through circle pivots, but a friend told me when she was little she'd haul pipes to one end of the field at it would flood the field with water. Flood irrigation.

I didn't think anyone did it this way anymore because it was such an inefficient use of water but I found a field just last week utilizing the old irrigation method.

I didn't get up close and personal, it was cold and I had three hungry kids in the car, but I assume it is a field of wheat.

You don't see many fields with pipes anymore but you do see the pipes in a lot of places. I've seen a 7 foot pen for chickens built out of irrigation pipes or just piled up randomly in a pasture.

How does your garden grow?

For now, most of my garden is in a bucket under a light in the house.

We started some tomatoes and I must say they are doing much better than I expected.

Ten days ago we had 90 degree weather here in Kansas and I figured, "Why not get my garden planted?" It's rather a pathetic looking plot isn't it. I'm hoping I can show off a green thumb in another month or so.

But it's only been ten days and I'm already anxious. Why isn't there anything growing?? Shouldn't SOMETHING have sprouted by now? Well, except that poor little squash plant. Really, I started it in the house and then transplanted it in the garden. But then five days after I placed it so lovingly in the soil we had 70 mph winds. Yes, 70 mph winds for a whole day. I'm amazed that little guy is still there. Although nothing was up when all that wind came by it sure didn't help the moisture content of my garden.

Please pray for my garden. Kansas gardening isn't like Indiana gardening.

I'm afraid nothing is going to grow!

On the bright side I have flowers ready to bloom!!

I didn't even know I had flowers at this house.

I think they are irises. Yay! I love irises!!

That's the state of my garden right now. I have the nagging thought that nothing's going to grow. But I think that every year so who knows?

Photo Thursday - Spring in Kansas

Doesn't that wheat look gorgeous?

We don't have square fields out here, well not many. They are all in circles. Where the end of the irrigation rig reaches is the end of the green.

Before Kansas I'd never seen a circle field or so many irrigated fields.

Personally, I think it's a waste of water and to better utilize resources farmers should move towards drought resistant crops but I guess this type of irrigation is an improvement. I talked to one woman who, as a child, helped haul large pipes out to the fields to flood them....an incredibly inefficient use of water.

Marker Monday - Coffee Filter Flowers

Here's a simple craft Yahoo and I worked on last week. Simple because it doesn't involve paint. I love to paint, but not with Yahoo. With her, paint always ends up everywhere but the paper she's supposed to paint on. Namely, it lands on her. But this was a simple project with not too much mess so cleanup was really quick.

Using magic markers (not permanent ) Yahoo scribbled on some flat coffee filters. I kept trying to get her to color more towards the edge but she was happy working in the middle.

I did a couple too.

Don't worry about coloring too nicely because the next step is to spray your drawing lightly with water. Spray it just enough to get the colors to run together.

Allow the coffee filters to dry then stack two or three together, pinch the center of the circles and scrunch the edges together to form flowers. I wrapped a pipe cleaner onto the bottom and stuck our flowers in a vase.

A quick way to enjoy some flowers if it isn't quite warm enough to go outside and enjoy any....yet!

Photo of the Day - Just one Drop

Sometimes it's the smallest, simplest things in life that I find the most wonderous...like a single drop of dew.