Sweetwater Days 03

We were excited to make our next trip to Sweetwater, despite the fact that it would be a one day down-and-back sandwiched between two four plus-hour-drives.

One of our sons was going with us to see the place for his first time.

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Since our last visit to the camp, I had been racking my brain to come up with a solution to the lack of running water in the cabin, while, of course, keeping expenses at a minimum.

It occurred to me that a man on the west side of Crowley’s Ridge had barrels for sale.  I had bought some steel drums from him in the past to use as burn barrels for our trash, and had seen some plastic ones there.  I wondered if he had any food-grade plastic barrels for sale.

Note: if you intend to put food or drinking water in a plastic drum, make sure that it is not only food grade (It is embossed with a numeral 2 enclosed in a triangular recycle symbol.) but that it has NEVER contained anything poisonous.

Pulling into Frank and Glenda Greenwood’s driveway I noticed that, besides the barrels, they had quite a few plastic totes stacked around.  These IBC (intermediate bulk container) totes are basically cube shaped and enclosed in a metal cage designed to support and strengthen the full tank while making it moveable with a forklift.

I checked several that I could get to without climbing or moving the stacks.  Everyone I found, even the ones marked as food grade plastic, had labels indicating they had previously been used to transport agricultural or other dangerous chemicals.  I wasn’t going to clean them out and hope they were good enough…not for my sons, their wives, and my grandbabies.  No way.

I have found totes for sale on the internet and the cheapest ones started at about $170 for a 175-gallon tank.  That’s not a bad price, but remember, I was trying to keep my expenses on the cabin to a minimum.  The Greenwoods’ prices for barrels were very reasonable so I thought they might have a slightly better price on the totes, if, that is, I could trust them to hold water safe enough for my grands.

The 55-gallon barrel I needed for my spring box was easy enough to find and I filled out one of the envelopes the owners had left out for that purpose, dropped in the required $20, and slipped it into the mailbox sitting there. 

Gotta love that honor system.

Climbing back into my pickup I hesitated and changed my mind about leaving.  I hated to bother them, but I just had to ask if they had a tote good enough to use for drinking water.  A knock on the door was answered by Glenda, who said Frank was coming out to help me.

I couldn’t have asked for a nicer salesman, or one who was willing to work harder for his little bit of profit.  Mr. Greenwood and I had a pleasant conversation as we climbed through the stacks of containers and he pointed to one 275-gallon tote with a layer of thick, black liquid in the bottom.

He smiled, “molasses.”

“How much do you want for this one?” I asked.

“$25.”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right.  “$25?”

“Yes, sir.”

That price alone was sweeter than molasses.

I helped Mr. Greenwood carry the tote out to where I could back the pickup in and load it up.  As I happily paid the man his $25, he asked, “Need any water jugs?  I’ve got some right over here.  But they hold seven gallons instead of five like most do.”

Thinking about all the water I’d sloshed out on many trips back and forth to the creek carrying open-top five-gallon buckets, I said, “I might could use a couple.”  I asked, “Food grade?”

He nodded.  “They were used to transport liquid coffee.”

That would work.  “How much?”

“You only need two?” he asked.

“Yes sir.”

“Don’t worry about paying me.  Pick out a couple and load them up.”

We stood around and talked about a little bit of everything for another 15 minutes, then I bid him adieu.

Driving home, I pondered my luck.  Instead of spending the minimum $300 I had estimated for just the tank, I had been blessed with the tank, the spring box, and a couple 7-gallon water jugs for only $45…and I had made a new friend in the process.

Not bad, I thought.  Not bad at all.

Back home I unloaded and washed out my new treasures, leaving the tote full of water to dissolve the last vestiges of old molasses, and added a gallon of bleach to disinfect it.  The next day I used a bristly push broom to scrub the tote out, then I was ready to load it up and take it to Sweetwater.

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Sergeant Robert “Bobby” Matthews is in the army stationed at Fort Polk, Louisiana, which was directly in the path of the recent hurricane.  Since Hurricane Laura passed through the area residents have suffered wide-spread power outages and had to live in 100 degree-plus temperatures and very high humidity without the comfort of air conditioning or running water.  Despite miserable sleeping conditions, Bobby had been among those soldiers who voluntarily drove around the area during the day, distributing food and water to those in need.  He told me stories of women begging for food and water for their children.

Such a shame.

Needless to say, when the army decided to send some soldiers on leave to ease the burden on the supply line, Bobby was more than ready to shed some of stress from helping others in dire need.  The army had plans they’d put into effect to make sure needy civilians were taken care of.

Besides, he wanted to see Sweetwater.

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When Bobby got home we had a few things to do to get ready for our trip to northwest Arkansas.  We loaded some more tools and a couple sacks of Portland Cement the night before, and added the food and water the morning of our trip, then it was off to Sweetwater.

Bobby enjoyed riding through the beauty of northern Arkansas, and was excited when we drove over the Whitewater River, which is known far and wide for its trout fishing.  I pointed out that there were elk farther downstream and bear, deer, and turkeys in the area and he commented, “Wow!  Sounds like heaven.”

I agreed.

After a bumpy ride down our easement road, we rounded the last curve and the clearing and cabin came into view.

“Wow.”

I guess he liked it.

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I gave Bobby a quick tour of the cabin, the spring, and the trail leading off to the south.  It didn’t take long for him to detour off the trail and down into the stream bed.  He admired the rock formations.  “Richard (his son) is going to love this place.”

As we walked along the stream bed, we kept an eye out for flat rocks that would work for me to build my first ever stone wall.  I didn’t think it would be difficult; the creek is full of them.

It wasn’t.

Back at the spring we used a five-gallon bucket to mix cement with stream water.  When it got to the right consistency, I tried to force some up under the rock beside the spring.  I didn’t want any water flowing around the wall.  It must all stay in my retaining pool, and only leave via my pipe. 

The next step was to select the right rocks and start building the wall itself.  Using liquid Portland cement to build a wall in the water is more difficult than it sounds.  It couldn’t be too runny or too dry.  Too runny and it would run off the rocks before I could place the rocks.  Too dry and it could be too brittle or not hold together and stick to the rocks.

We built the wall on both sides of the channel I had carved out of the bedrock.  I put a dab in the chute and placed the 1 ½ inch black plastic pipe in it, using bigger rocks on either side of where the completed wall would be.  The rocks would hold the pipe down, so it wouldn’t curl and pull out of the cement before it set.  Then we finished the wall.  Luckily it didn’t have to be very tall, so we got it finished relatively fast.

We unrolled the pipe downstream to the place I had chosen to put the spring box, then I cut it off, leaving a little extra to connect when I got the spring box in place.  I was a little disappointed to find that the water would only flow through the pipe a few inches above the surface of the water.  If I raised it higher, the flow would slow and stop.

The place I had chosen to put the spring box was the best option, in my mind, but the water flowing in would only fill it a few inches deep.  Would a pump be able to lift the water 30 feet or so to the tank, or would the low water keep the pump shutting off so that the water could flow back down to the spring box?

I’ll have to do more studying to figure out my best options.

Now it was time for a little fun project I’d been wanting to do.

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As I was cleaning out the spring the week before, I had heard an echoing sound that told me there was a small cave under the bedrock the spring ran out of.  My mind was racing with ideas of what could be in a cave, even one that small, that had never been seen by man before.

I had brought my GoPro camera and its waterproof case with me for just this purpose.  Attaching the camera to a “selfie stick” so that it faced away from the handle I then bungeed a waterproof flashlight under it.  With that all assembled, I turned them both on and slid them under the rock.

As I moved the camera around, I had visions of what I would see on the recording.  Perhaps a raccoon or opossum was hiding in the cave.  Maybe some prehistoric creature had climbed in and died thousands or even millions of years ago, leaving its skeleton for me to get video of, the first person in history ever to see it.

I pulled the selfie/cave exploration stick back out.  I hadn’t brought my computer so we wouldn’t get to check out my discovery until we got back to the Bootheel.

Bobby asked if he could take my cave camera uphill so that he could check out some of the little caves I had told him about.  It would be safer to stick a camera and flashlight in some of the holed than to risk crawling in with a rattlesnake.

My son came back shortly and told me he had only been able to get to one cave, but he had used my invention and thought he had gotten some footage.  We were eager to check out our discoveries when we got home.

Annie and I had started loading the pickup for our second four-hour drive in one day and we piled in and headed east.

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As an added note, you didn’t think I was going to leave you hanging for a couple weeks to find out what the camera revealed in the caves, didja?

It was a little hard to see in the cave under the rock over the spring, but I think I made out some spider webs and a salamander.  No long-extinct animals, but interesting nonetheless.

In the other cave, the one Bobby videoed, he found a couple cave crickets and a little hollowed out spot under one of the rock ledges.  It looked like some animal may have used the cave as a home.  We may have to explore that cave a little more sometime in the future so we can get some idea what kind of critter once called it home.  Who knows, it could have lived there a few days ago, a few hundred years ago, or a few millennia ago.

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As I said earlier, it was time to head home.  I had a three-day weekend coming up and there were a few things I wanted to do.  I had to get Sweetwater and myself ready for deer and bear season.

But that will have to wait until next time, in Sweetwater Days 04.

I can’t wait.  I hope you’ll come along.

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