Sand In Our Well Water

There are a few disadvantages to living on an island, the major ones being sewage disposal and availability of adequate fresh water. On small islands there is usually no central sewage system so every residence has its own septic system. On our island these range from ordinary single tank septic systems to sophisticated newer sand filter or mound systems, but because so much of the island's soil is hardpan these septic systems need vigilant upkeep or we risk polluting the sea around us. Our county is only now recognizing the need for regular inspections, having faced up to current pollution, and beginning next year we will all be required to have annual inspections.

As for water, there are hundreds of individual and community wells relying on the one island aquifer about which no one knows the capacity or how quickly it recharges. Even the island hydrologist doesn't know. One thing we do know is that our deeply forested topography is advantageous to the aquifer, and as the island is logged off most of the rainwater that would naturally recharge the aquifer runs off into the sea, taking topsoil with it and eventually causing land slides. We know also that the further south you go on the island the more salt water intrusion there is, and once you have salt water mixing with fresh water you're in trouble.

Our property had two sources of water now because, although we'd drilled our own well due to the time constraints relating to improvements the water association was required to make, we still belonged to the association and were entitled to connect to their water. We retained membership primarily because as members we were also entitled to beach rights on the beach front lot the association owned below us.

It wasn't too long after we moved in before we noticed sand in our water. We noticed it in the dishwasher, in the washing machine and in the toilet tanks eventually, where it collected to about 1/4". We called Sarah, our builder, who called the well driller. They came out and suggested we install a water filter, which we did. Then the filter started clogging up and we complained again. Oddly enough, we'd had the same problem with a new house we'd lived in in the Midwest, and the problem was finally solved by drilling the well deeper. Well drillers hate to admit they haven't gone deep enough, for it cuts into their profit. They can't charge extra after they've as much as guaranteed you a pure and adequate water supply for which you've already paid, but we put our collective feet down and they drilled down another 50 or so feet. This appeared to solve the problem, but to be honest, we still have small amounts of sand every once in awhile, but nothing like before. So it's good to know we have another supply of water if it eventually becomes necessary. And so far the community well has no salt water intrusion.

Is David Really Comfortable Here?

I am by nature an introvert and loner. First children frequently are, and for the first four years of my life I lived in an apartment building with just my parents, and because there wasn't an opportunity to play with other children I entertained myself. I never outgrew my introverted independence.

David, on the other hand, was the youngest of 3 children and was brought up in a neighborhood of numerous children. He's never been without the company of others. He is an extrovert, in need of others from whom he can bounce ideas and exchange views. Opposites DO attract, and David and I have been juggling our different needs throughout our life together.

I had foolishly thought that once we were ensconced in our beautiful house on our beautiful property with our beautiful view that's all he would need--besides me, of course. In retrospect, I don't know what I thought he'd do with his time. For 15 years or so he'd been playing golf 3 times a week. He had his own business that he ran out of our home, but he'd planned that so that his business never interfered with his golf.

I really didn't expect him to turn to me for his sole source of company. I knew both of us too well, and I knew having him around all the time, depending on me for conversation would soon drive me up the wall. A friend, who was familiar with my personality, had once given me a decorative pillow with a hanging ribbon attached that I could hang on the doorknob and shut the door to my office. On it was embroidered, "I vant to be alone." Supposedly a famous actress from the twenties, Greta Garbo, who spoke with a Swedish accent, had said this in a movie and it became an "in" thing to say.

I guess I thought he would just sort of putter around, take up painting again or do yard work to take up the slack. But of course he would never be able to tolerate this. He'd moved here to please me and I was grateful for it. But now he drove 120 miles, 3 times a week, to the golf course we had left and that he'd simply had to walk across the fairway in order to meet his friends. Still, I thought this wouldn't last. If he couldn't give up golf he could surely find a golf course closer. But what I failed to fully understand was that it wasn't really the golf course as much as it was the company he kept. If he couldn't play with convivial guys the golf wasn't worth the trouble.

We Really ARE In The Boonies

Picturesque, quiet and peaceful, away from the madness of the big city. These were the things we had looked for and found on this island we now called home. We slept with the windows open and throughout the night we could hear animal noises frequently in the woods around us: owls, cats and other small animals, large animals and sometimes screams that sounded like distress. We read in the local paper about coyotes and disappearing pets and saw the culprits often on the edge of the road and sometimes even in our driveway, peering at us warily. There were also reports in the newspaper of a cougar on the loose, but after a few months the reports ceased.

A mountain beaver regularly ran across the back yard while I was making dinner; a family of raccoons traipsed through, single file, looking for sunflower seeds the birds might have dropped from the feeder (and anything else they might scavenge); small, brown native squirrels, a separate specie from the European grey squirrels on the mainland, were never at a loss when it came to raiding squirrel-proof bird feeders; possums wore a path from our little garden house into the woods, looking for who knows what; salamanders lived in holes at the base of a Douglas Fir in our back yard; whales meandered by in the spring returning from wintering in Mexico; hummingbirds arrived in March and fed voraciously at my feeders until the early part of July. And of course, the deer. People who didn't have gardens were known to coax them into their yards, for they are graceful, non-threatening animals who remember profitable feeding stations and bring back their young the following year.

One day I came to a stop in the middle of the road on my way home from somewhere. A doe was attempting to cross the road with two newborns who were still wobbly on their feet. A couple in a car coming from the opposite direction had stopped too, and the man was on the road taking pictures. Since I didn't have my camera with me I just sat and watched. And hoped they would avoid becoming road kill like so many others.

There is an albino deer on the island--there'd been pictures in the paper, but it frequented another part of the island and we never saw it. People who did see it regularly fretted about hunters getting it during the season.

From the Interstate it was a 20 minute drive to our house, with no stop lights or stop signs. I never knew exactly, but it seemed as though only about half the homes here were occupied year round. Only 20 years ago it was far lower. There were 3 small markets on the island, 1 on the south end and 2 on the north end, but when you're accustomed to a supermarket you frequent the island markets only in emergencies. For everything else it was a 45 minute drive off the island. Well, I didn't mind. This was what I wanted. I just saved up my errands and went to "town" once a week.

Getting To Know Neighbors

We'd met everyone in our immediate "neighborhood", such as it is. Neighborhoods here generally coalesced into water districts, so ours consisted of the 12 homes in our water district. We were the last house on the southern edge, there was another house just north of us within screaming distance through the trees (in summer we couldn't see it when the trees were leafed out) and across a country lane to the north were the other 10 houses. We in the unique position of not being within visual range of anyone else on our almost 3 acres of land. The rest of the houses were close together on long, narrow 50 foot wide lots at the top of the bluff overlooking the sound. On a warm summer day when everyone had their windows open in any of those houses--for in the Northwest central air for homes was almost non-existent--one could easily hear conversations taking place in the house next door. So I particularly appreciated our setting of complete privacy.

For 17 years we had been living in a homogenous neighborhood where everyone was in pretty much the same income bracket and had many of the same interests, i.e., golf: borrrrring! Here, thankfully, everyone was different, including their socioeconomic status, and I began to enjoy getting to know the differences.

There were retired couples, one of whom had lived here, it seemed, forever and who'd owned and operated a tiny grocery store on the island; another couple whom I suspected were on the fringe of the original hippie movement, with a modest house and modest jobs, who grew their own food, bartered for services, and eschewed television; those who held hourly wage labor jobs, a teacher, a salesman, a nurse, in other words, a perfect slice of American life!

Crises Over, We're Done!

STILL some work to be done on the inside, but the outside is finished, except for the shutters. Doesn't the chimney look much better set back on the roof? Grass stays green here in the Northwest, so on January 1 when we moved in it still looked pretty much like this, sans junkpile.

Our first night in the house was a thrill even though we had to spend quite some time moving enough boxes out of the way so we had a path to the bed and bathroom. I'd found the sheets and comforter so at least we had a proper bed. We looked out through the French doors in our bedroom, saw across the water the lights of a neighboring island, looked at each other and giggled. We'd done it. Well, Sarah had done it, but it was done. It was OURS!

Change Order Over A Phallic Symbol

We thought this looked like...well, YOU know!


This looked much better...don't you think?

Like most people who build houses we went wildly over our budget with change orders. I'll admit I was the one responsible most of the time, but not everyone has the ability to look at blueprints and see things that, after all, won't work.

The first one resulted from some computer software designed to help with furniture arrangement. Once I input the dimensions of our bedroom and our king sized bed I could see the room was going to be too small. Luckily I discovered this before the foundation went in so it wasn't a big deal. We just added an extra two feet to the south wall.

Next, when we arrived on one of our weekly visits after the house was being framed I saw two blank walls that definitely needed windows, one in the kitchen and one in my office. That wasn't too bad. All they had to do was cut through the plywood and studs and frame a window. Still, it was extra.

A near catastrophe was the deck. The carpenter happened to be there working on the Sunday we visited, and immediately both of us could see the edge of the deck was too close to the French doors off the family room. If someone were to have just a little too much wine when he/she stepped out onto the deck, well, it wasn't like falling into the sound or anything that drastic, but it wouldn't have been funny. So we told the carpenter how we wanted it changed and brought down Sarah's wrath.

She called, and in no uncertain terms without raising her voice, she told me she was person we'd hired to build our house and that any changes we wanted to make would have to go to her first. She was right, of course, but I felt silly being scolded like a child and insisted "well, we were there, Sarah, and we just didn't want him going any further until the mistake was corrected." She didn't buy it and I learned my lesson.

The really major catastrophe was the chimney in David's den at the front of the house. We drove up the day they had cut through the roof and installed the exhaust from the propane fireplace. We both gasped and said in unison, "Oh, no!" The chimney looked for all the world like a phallic symbol. We called Sarah and she took matters into her own hands and had it moved back where it became less prominent. It didn't matter that no one else saw it that way.

I Rat On A Rat Fink

I have to admit that I'm a stickler for knowing the rules and following them, for it's the best way to avoid conflict with people. For some, it might go against the grain to live by that philosophy, but I loathe conflict and I readily admit it. Still, if I'm accused of something I'm not guilty of, I'll go on the attack with righteous indignation!

That's the way I felt when Sarah told me one of my neighbors had called the health department to complain about the well being too close to our drain field. We'd followed the rules. Instead of merely calling for information--to ask if what we were doing had been approved--the person, whoever he was (and I knew it had to be a man) had simply reported it as a violation of fact. I wasn't about to eat that insult without responding to it, and since I didn't know who it was I figured the best way to "out" the person was at the next meeting of our association.

I usually went to these meetings alone (except for the first one when we explained our situation) for they were held on Saturdays, David's day to play golf. And besides, David wasn't inclined to go to meetings at all, much less ones he had to drive an hour and a half to get to. So I sat quietly throughout, as newcomers usually do who have little knowledge of the subjects.

When the time came, toward the end of the meeting, after all business had been completed, I waited for a second's silence and then piped up, "I just want everyone to know that we are aware that someone here called the Health Department and complained about our well being too close to the drainfield, and I just want to say two things." Everyone got kind of wide-eyed and looked at each other in shock. Someone had said the unexpected! How to deal with that! "First," I went on, "the Health Department approved the location of the well, and second, I want everyone to know we are good citizens and good neighbors and don't intend doing anything illegal." I said it evenly and not belligerently, as though merely dishing out information.

I can't even remember what happened next, only that the guilty person was never revealed that day. (However, as time went on and the workmen reported a certain man came around every day to inspect what they were doing, I eventually was able to deduce who it was.) I'd been so intent on saying my piece that my concentration was on just getting it out and leaving.

After the meeting ended I chatted briefly with a few people, just to show there were no hard feelings, but I never told David what I'd said because I'd never told him what Sarah had told me. He'd have blown his top!

The County Cracks Down With New Standards

When Sarah went to the local county building department she was told that before she could obtain a building permit our water district had to install a new system which would cost every homeowner thousands of dollars. This was good news since the septic permit that had already been granted was only good for nine more months before they also upped the requirements for septic systems, and then we'd have to start all over.

Most of the smaller islands around here had been used primarily as summer colonies, so no one had given much thought to water standards. There were separate little groups of houses that together formed their own water districts and pooled the water from one large well, and it was a helter skelter type of organization. But now that people were starting to move onto the islands full time it was becoming obvious that new standards would have to be established and enforced.

We started out by meeting with the residents of our water district, a group of 12 families scattered in the immediate area. But it soon became obvious that it was not in their interest to conform to the new standards. They were getting along fine as it was. I couldn't blame them, really. Here we were, new people and all of a sudden the state decides no one can build a new house without the whole water district being subject to upgrading. We discussed it with Sarah and she suggested we drill our own well, and while this added costs we hadn't anticipated, we had little choice if we wanted everything to go according to schedule.

Some of our neighbors were none too happy with our decision to drill our own well. They felt the water table might be affected. Perhaps they felt if they dragged their feet we'd get fed up and leave. Sort of like "if you don't think about it it'll go away". When we didn't someone filed a complaint with the health department stating our well was too close to our septic drain field. This only caused hard feelings, for Sarah had obtained health department approval before giving the go-ahead to the well driller.

Sarah: She Is Woman, Hear Her Roar!

I couldn't prove it, but I think David's blood pressure went up a bit when I casually mentioned I'd found a builder and "guess what? Her name is Sarah!" But to his credit he recovered quickly and decided to hold off on opinions set in cement until after he'd seen and talked to her.

She was great. She not only saved us money by pointing us in the direction of an outstanding designer who came up with plans for my perfect house, just the way I wanted it, and without judgmental interventions, she cracked the whip on all her subcontractors, and if something wasn't up to snuff or not the way she wanted it it was done over.

Sarah and her husband literally built two houses themselves, for themselves, and once they were finished and other people saw what they'd done, they suddenly realized they were in business. That is, Sarah was in business, because her husband preferred to stay out of the building business, having had enough after their own two houses.

Once the blueprints were finished and we'd discussed exactly how and where we wanted the house sited on our property it was time to get a building permit. But the state had changed the rules and we were about to receive our first lesson in how rural areas function at the local level.

Looking For Property

David hates to look at houses or property, so finding the right place was always left up to me. This arrangement has suited me, however, because I know what I want. The one time David went ahead and bought something I was against I hated it. (He only did it because we had to find some place to live when he was transferred and the town had very few properties for sale.) When I do the searching and finally find something he'll usually agree unless I'm way out of line, and so far I haven't been way out of line. Still, the process can take me a long time.

I'd looked for over a year for the kind of property I wanted. What the heck, we were under no pressure to move. I'd seen some lovely properties--we were looking for bare land so I could have a house built that I designed--but there always seemed to be something wrong with it. It was either too close to neighbors, too expensive, too far away or too small. Then, finally, on the one day David agreed to come along with me, we found the perfect property.

It was almost three acres on the west side of the island, on a bluff overlooking the water, another island and the Olympic Mountains, which even in summer, were topped with snow. Most of the property was heavily wooded, but near the bluff it had been logged to make room for a small manufactured home that served as a weekend house for some city dwellers. We would get the afternoon sun and be able to watch sunsets. It had just come on the market and we grabbed it.

We had the home torn down, found a building contractor and a home designer and, long story short, here we are. The building of the house, however, was a tale in itself, because our general contractor was a seventy year old woman.

When I was driving around the island one day--I would go out occasionally just to sit and look out at the water--I drove by a small, two story cottage style house set back on wooded acreage, surrounded by a split rail fence. It was adorable, so I rang the doorbell and asked the owner who had built it. That's how we found Sarah.