No More Wasted Water

Up until 1953, the only supply of running water we had on our farm was a windmill that pumped water into a metal cistern. Before the metal one, dad had a huge wooden cistern but I can’t remember that one. We had water piped underground to the kitchen where there was just one faucet over the kitchen sink. We also had one hydrant at the entrance of our house. This is where everyone “washed off” before we came into the house. One towel would hang on the fence near the faucet used by all the family members. This towel wouldn’t be washed until “wash day” which usually was on Saturday.

Let’s get back to the cistern. It had an over flow pipe and many times as we came home the windmill would be running real fast and the cistern would be over flowing with wasted water running all over the yard. So dad devised an ingenious cut off on the windmill. There was a 20-inch piece of wood attached to a wire on this windmill. If one wanted to cut the mill off he would bear down on this handle and the tightened wire would pull at the brake up at the wheel and cut it off. Dad discarded this 2 foot piece of handle and installed a 10 foot 2x4 instead. Two feet from the end he reinstalled the wire. On the other end he hung a 2 gallon foot tub or bucket. This bucket was positioned under the over flow pipe coming down from the cistern. Now once this overflow pipe filled the bucket, the heavy weight of it would pull down on the wire and thus cut the windmill off.

We usually had our one milk cow grazing in our huge front yard. I found out if we closed the gate to her pen she would get thirsty and end up drinking all the water out of the cut off bucket. When the bucket got empty, it also got lighter thus allowing the 2x4 arm to swing up and put the wind mill “on” again. Then the cistern once again got full. What a grand cycle. This system worked great for years until 1953 when dad retired that windmill and cistern and had an electric jet pump installed. But the windmill still stands there today because dad said it wouldn’t look like a farm without a windmill.