Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The Real Heroes of the Plains



The water-bringers. These old Aermotors have been pulling more than their own weight for many years. Some of them are pushing one-hundred-years old and they still put in a full day, and then some.

This area has a very high water table, sometimes just a few feet below the surface. But without a pump to bring it up it's useless. The modern trend seems to be toward pumps run with solar panels, but these old Aermotors still cover the plains. Their clank-clank-clank and the splashing of the water into the big round tanks is a welcome sound to any plainsman.

2 comments:

Ryan said...

Those are awful darn nice and historic to boot. One real advantage of them is that I imagine they are a lot easier to fix then solar panels.

Anonymous said...

I like the fact that they are simple and do not require electric power. Technology is a great thing, but the more complex it is, the less reliable to my mind. Simple is good. As the Russian proverb says, "the best is the enemy of good enough."