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Show plants unfold. We naturally hungered for success in a general way but we also felt a parental pride in each sprig that green-thumbed its nose at hostile nature. We almost felt on our own skin the sand-arrows launched by gusts against those impudent infants. We rejoiced in the courage of each cell that mated sun-power and earth to create beauty in the barren. Water as ever was the key. That now we knew: water in sufficient quantity in the right spots. Father decided to sink a well in a new place. Our first well had yielded sweet water, but it was turning slightly brackish, likely because our drastic dry phase caused us to drain too much water out of the first water-layer and allow seepage from the alkali flats to filter in. Furthermore, the big sump of a well on the Experiment Farm across the track- chief reason for the brackish water to encroach-not only had that saline taste too but still gave us problems with the quicksand. We hadn't been able to exclude the slippery sand. On the new site we would be farther from the low clay flat snaking down the center of the valley, the sink where minerals leached from hundreds of miles of hills and benches accumulated. Moreover we would probe below the first water-bearing stratum to a deeper, purer, more secure source. At least we hoped. Father engaged Johnny Dinwiddie, oldest son of the numerous Dinwiddie clan located across the valley toward Blue Mountain. The Dinwiddies boasted their ancestry included an early Virginia governor, but Johnny was not as proud of that as he was of his well-drilling outfit. It was not a power-driven rig; we manpowered the auger by means of a bar loaded with weights as needed. |