Hand-Dug Well

Richard and Jim were out early today working on the deer fence, and Ryan and I joined them later on. The northern half of the deer fence is now complete, so all that's left are the three gateways. While Ryan and Richard were finishing up the fence I went looking for the old well that Dean Cawthra said he had found, covered by a piece of metal. And here it is (photo above) ...between the bypass trail and the pond, and marked by some rocks holding down a thin piece of metal. We lifted off the cover and found the well in great shape (photo below).

Hard to see from the photo, but the entire well is about 8 feet deep and filled half way with crystal clear water - you can barely even tell where the water is in the photo because it's so clear. The dead leaves there got kicked in when we lifted the cover and are floating on the top of the water. The water level in the well is the same as in the pond. Now the question is: Is there any way we can use this for the garden? Jim suggested a battery could be used to pump water out, but I don't think he realized how far down the hill the well is. That would take a heavy duty pump to get it all the way up to the garden. Dean had said we should be able to hook up a hand pump to the well, but then we still would have to carry buckets of water up the hill. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if we had something on wheels to help haul the water up. Or can a hand pump be used to pump the water up the hill? No idea.