Hauling Water 💦

I was listening to a Robert Caro lecture about Lyndon Johnson the other night. He was talking about what a big deal electrification was to rural Texas homes in an era when many ranch wives were still hauling water by hand from wells to their homes, backbreaking work without electric or mechanical pumps and hoses. I follow a lot of off-griders these days out west, and many still rely on hauling water onsite, although they tend to use electric or gas powered pumps to move water between tanks from their pickup trucks to storage in buildings and and barns.

Hauling your own water must make you much more conscience of your water use, every shower you take, every drop of water you use for washing dishes, taking a shower or if you have flush toilets, every time you flush the toilet. But the flip side, is it makes you a lot more conscience of your use, especially if you are buying it in town, and hauling it back 250 gallons at a time on your 1 ton pickup. A lot off-griders who haul their water from town have big full-size pickup trucks, not because their good-ol’ boys, which many are, but because water is heavy, and you need the big truck to move water.

But alas, this day of age there are all kinds of pumps, so moving water is relatively easy when you fire up a gas generator and pumps to move the heavy product. It’s a lot easier to quantify a gallon of water when you are buying it and moving it, and using it. Especially in the desert or other drier western climate where water isn’t as accessible. And if your raising livestock, I can imagine it means moving even more water, although in such cases most farms have ponds and other sources of water, which might be good for watering livestock but maybe not so great for drinking, especially without purification.