Water Witching

The beginning of any major construction project, even for a small 800 square foot cabin like ours, feels a little bit like trying to levitate. While juggling. Balls you know about like finding the money, finding a contractor, negotiating time off with an employer, designing the cabin, applications to the county (AKA Bureaucratic Hell), readying the site. And being extremely rural, planning a septic system and a well. And then there's the balls you had no idea about. Like getting a water witcher (AKA douser, deviner).

The contractor we met with while in Colorado suggested getting a water witcher before drilling a well, adding the drilling company would be reluctant to drill without one. When the contractor had built his own home in the area he'd decided to pass on the water witcher, chalking it up to charlatanism at worst, unsubstantiated "science" at best. After over 300 expensive feet of drilling with no water, only a broken bit jammed into dry rock, the drilling company said they'd drill again AFTER he'd gotten a water witcher. The water witcher indicated a spot 40 feet away and they hit water.

We decided we wanted to be around for the water witching, partly for the experience and partly because we were nervous about being able to find water close to the cabin site. The line from the well to the house has to be buried in a seven foot deep (!!!) trench per code (an increasingly irritating word), and as the ground is mostly rock....well, you see the problem.

We were planting ponderosa and fir seedings up on the saddle when we heard the water witcher's diesel truck grinding up the steep dirt road leading to the cabin site. I wandered down the hill to welcome him, leaving my husband to finish up. Two men got out of the truck, brothers. Steve the water witcher (not his day job) and his brother Stan, an excavator who was along for the ride with a side order of drumming up some business for himself.

"Is this anything like a seance," I asked Steve, "where a disbeliever will screw it up?" I looked up the hill at my husband who was just then making his way down to us, muttering "I'm a scientist; this is BS," under his breath no doubt.

"Naw," Steve the Water Witcher said, good-naturedly, "nothing like that".

After a little chit-chat and some discussion about the cabin's location, Steve got out the tool of his trade, a freshly cut forked willow branch over two feet long. He stuck a huge bunch of blue flagged markers on wire through his belt for easy access. Holding the forked ends of the willow branch in his hands he rolled his wrists slightly, torquing the end that had grown closest to the ground into a slightly up-tilted position and started walking.

As his brother Stan chatted with my husband, I watched as the tip of the willow branch dipped straight down, again and again. Each time Steve would jam a marker into the earth at that spot. Since I couldn't believe that the branch was moving over 90 degrees on its own, I assumed Steve was moving it. It simply made no sense to me.

Steve spent a good 20 minutes wandering the land surrounding the cabin site and eventually you could see patterns in the blue flags dotting the landscape. There were two relatively straight lines that followed a path radiating down from the high point of our property just to the east of the cabin site, supposedly fissures in the uplifted rock in which water collected -- the spots that drilling was most likely to be successful. One line ran down in front of the cabin, the farthest from the driveway; fine for drilling before a cabin stood on the site, but bad in case we ever needed to get a drilling rig (all 40 feet of it) in there again. The other ran right behind where the cabin would stand, with easy access from our road and that would require only a short seven foot deep trench to the house. If you believed water witching worked -- Steve claimed a better than 98% success rate after witching for over 500 wells -- it looked like we had a good chance of a well close to the cabin.

"Can I try?" I asked.

"Sure, everybody's got to try it," replied Steve.

He handed me the willow branch, showing me how to gently roll my wrists to get the right torque. And understand this -- I badly wanted to be able to feel the tug of water deep below the surface of the earth. It would be equal to a religious fanatic finding the image of the Virgin Mary as clear as day on their breakfast toast, like having something reach out and touch you from the "other side". I wanted the connection, but I was also certain I would not be a Chosen One. Besides, I knew where the water was supposed to be, so it would be too easy for me to imagine the tug. I ratcheted my skeptic meter to high and walked slowly across the line Steve had marked.

Just as I passed over the line I thought I felt the slightest vibration, a gentle pull. "Nonsense," I thought, "you just want to feel it." So I turned around, determined that I wouldn't feel a thing on the return trip. As I crossed over again, very conscious of keeping my hands immobile and with Steve and Stan and my husband watching, I felt a decided pull and we all watched the end of the willow tremble. Frankly, it scared the crap out of me. I was a believer. AND I had the gift, at least a little bit.

Now it was my husband's turn. I grabbed the camera, knowing I could get good money from his staff of fellow-scientists for evidence of him dabbling in the dark arts. He doesn't particularly like advice, especially from people he half considers quacks about something he thinks is pure hooey, hooey he's about to pay good money for. Ignoring Steve's advice about turning his wrists gently, he gave his wrists a healthy twist which resulted in the willow branch snapping up, bonking him in the head. While we all tried to stifle ourselves, Steve attempted grasping instructions again, but to no avail. Impatient with the whole thing, my husband reversed his grasp with the result of the willow branch snapping in the opposite direction, thwacking him firmly in the crotch. Marginally recovered and anxious to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible, he simply strangled the willow branch, snapping it, and proceeded to stomp across the supposed water line holding the tortured branch in a death grip. No one was surprised when he said, "I didn't feel a thing." Though we all knew he did, at least in his privates.

We'll let you know how the drilling goes.