Witching Our Lot

Today we went to our property with my Uncle Bob to witch the lot and see if there were any hopes of getting water. Bob runs Robert Ruth Well Drilling, and has been witching and drilling wells since he was young. Bob was taught by his father, and had taught his three boys how to witch for water, and today it was our turn.

Initially, Bob had told us that we had about a 50% chance of getting water just based on the well maps around our property. He didn't seem too optimistic, which kind of sent us into a mindset of 'what if we can't get water, have to sell this lot, lose money, and have to find another lot' - not an ideal situation, especially when we love this lot so much.

Back to witching though. Not too sure what that is? We weren't too sure either. We had heard the term many times before, but we weren't really sure what the whole process entailed, so we did what any normal person would do and went to the internet. As we all know, the internet is a blessing and a curse. It is a glorious tool for learning about things like construction, and reading reviews before you buy a product or use a service. The internet burns us all when we try to use it for things such as looking up symptoms when we're sick - however it did help me diagnose myself with a hernia during my pregnancy, but that's a different story.

Using the internet to look up witching with no background knowledge on how anything worked actually gave us more than a handful of laughs and a lot to look forward to. It is this quirky method of using either two rods or one Y shaped rod to find water. When you walk over an area with a water source, your two rods are supposed to cross, or your Y is supposed to point to the ground. I am still unsure what really makes this method work, whether it's a magnetic field, the will of God, or some paranormal freaky something that I really don't want to understand, but we were looking forward to seeing what would come from it on our property.

Today was the day! At 2pm we went and met Bob at our lot. His tool of choice was a Y shaped rod that strongly resembled a coat hanger. He explained to us that the more you do it the more it seems to work for you. He had learned the practice from his dad many years ago, has been doing it ever since, and has never not hit water. Bob walked us through our lot, asked us questions about where our home would be located, and where the septic would be put. Wells need to be at least 50 feet away from your septic bed as per code.

Once we determined where our starting point would be for the well, Bob held his rod tightly with both hands, and explained that the tighter he holds it the better it works. You need to keep the bottom of the Y pointed directly ahead of you, and when you walk over water the bottom of the Y will try to point at the ground. He explained that you should keep trying to point it ahead, even when it is fighting you. The more it stays down, the better the water source.

Sure enough, he found a location where the rod was fighting against him to stay down. Bob then handed Mitch the rod, and told him to give it a try. Mitch was unsure at some points of what the rod was doing. It was a pretty windy day, and after watching a few YouTube videos seeing there are so many ways to sway it, he wasn't sure he was getting true results. The rod was doing a bit of pulling down in the same area that it had worked for Bob.

Now it was my turn.

I found that I had to do some walking around before anything really happened for me. Bob kept saying, the more you do it the better it works for you. I am usually a skeptic and I want to be able to debunk things like this, but with such little knowledge on the subject there was no way I could sway its reason for working in any direction. As I walked around, I could definitely feel a pull to the ground. It was windy, but there were breaks in the wind, and there was no way that some wind was pulling this rod to the ground. I kept walking, trying not to keep track of where I had been or where had worked for Bob, but I ended up in the same location saying "the rod won't come back up!".

I am now a believer! But honestly, hopefully this coat hanger didn't lie and we will have enough water to shower and have a glass of water at the same time.

The next step for us is getting in touch with some friends to see where we have to put our septic system, and how much space it will take up. Then it's back to the drafting board to design a few house samples and see which one we love!

We always love it when we get to be part of something we don't know much about, and when people are willing to teach us their skills. Thanks Uncle Bob!

- Bailey

#buildingourfamily #welldrilling #witching #newhome #newhomebuilders