There is a little patch of woods directly to the south of our 5 acre property. A family of seven siblings owns the land as best as we can figure. They are never, ever around. The woods is overgrown in privet, willow, chinaberry and tallow trees, but there are some nice live oak trees towering above the lower canopy. The woods is a haven for possums, rats, birds and other critters.
When the kids were younger, they did what we did as kids - build forts in the woods. This overgrown jungle is low-lying and fills with water after a decent-sized rain. I walk back in the woods from time to time. I use a machete to keep a 10 foot swath cleaned up between our fence line and the woods. The privet tries admirably to reclaim the cleared pasture. One day I'll be too old to chop it back and the privet will win the war, but not today.
About twenty yards into the woods is an old rice field irrigation well. You can see the pulley has notches for 8 rubber belts that drove the pump.
The pump itself was built in nearby Welsh, Louisiana, by the Lo-lift Pump Company, established in 1895. It is still in operation today. The gentleman that owned it used to have quite a model train set that he would set up and run during Christmas time. It was a nice thing to bring the kids to.
As you can tell, it has been years and years since this pump was in operation. All the area around us was rice fields in the past. A lot of the land has been replaced with homes and large trees now inhabit what were formerly rice fields.
This concrete basin sits at the front of the well. You can see where a steel pipe came out of the well and directed water into the canal. I can imagine this was a great place for farm kids to cool off on a hot summer day. The cold, clear water is enough to take your breath away, even on the hottest of days. I can remember swimming in the cold water in a pit just like this 30 or so miles north of this. I can almost hear the deafening straight exhaust pipe of the V-8 engine, the smell of diesel and taste the metallic taste of the cold water as I look at the photo below.
So many years later, I can still spot one of the belts that drove the pulley on the well, converting the horsepower of the engine into energy that spun the well and delivered ground water to acres of rice fields.
On the other side, you can see large creosote posts that were the anchor point for a large engine that sat on top. From the timber lying about, there was almost certainly a shed of some sort that covered the engine.
Although it's been years since the pump has produced water, I wonder several things when looking at it: How many feet down does the well go before it hits water? Jennings sits at an elevation of 16 ft. You don't have to dig very far to hit water, but rice field irrigation wells are drilled deep. I also wonder if you could still get water from this well or did the well sand up and stop producing?
It's kind of neat to walk back twenty yards in the woods and find relics of the past right there.
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