Cool, clear water.
The Stringam ranch had plenty of it.
Soft.
Pure.
Clean.
There was only one thing distinctive
about it.
And I do mean 'stinc'.
Let me illustrate with a little aside .
. .
My Husby's Gramma used to give her kids
a dose of 'spring tonic' every year.
It consisted of sulphur mixed in lard.
Eaten from a spoon.
Ick.
But she maintained that it kept them
healthy.
Well, on the Stringam ranch, we never
had to be dosed with this old wives remedy.
Because we got it merely by living
there.
Yes, our water was right full of
sulphur.
I am not making this up.
Our water was plentiful and healthful.
But reeked like rotten eggs.
The smell of it permeated everything
and everyone.
And, oddly enough, we loved it.
We drank it.
Bathed in it.
Cleaned with it.
Offered it, chilled, to anyone who
happened to drop by.
And snickered silently when they would
hold their noses to drink it.
Poor, unenlightened visitors.
Our animals happily drank it, too.
In fact, when we took our cattle to
show, we always had to take time to get them accustomed to the water
in the new place.
Most places added chlorine.
Now THAT really stank.
And tasted worse.
I miss our good old sulphur water.
That elixir that kept us healthy and
strong.
There is an addendum . . .
The people who bought the old ranch
from us hauled their drinking water.
And finally drilled a new well.
I can only shake my head.
Strange, weird people.
Sulpher...ick! The hubs folks water smelled like that. I could never go it.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny. I couldn't stand anyone else's water.
DeleteLOL Diane, I would have been one of those people hauling water as I wouldn't be able to get past the smell :)
ReplyDeleteOh, the fun you would have missed!!!
DeleteWhen I started dating my first highschool sweetheart (a Warner girl) I didn't even notice the suphur smell at their house because I was used to it. There were quite a number of farms with sulphur gas in the water in our region so we weren't an isolated case although it definitely got those who weren't used to it going.
ReplyDeleteI remember the next crowd at the ranch. They fixed up a strange system to purify the water out of the river. It didn't work very well. The next ones reverted back the the next batch after that hauled water.
Oh, the adventures they missed!
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