The farm pond.......

1972

Our pond supplied our running water to the house.  There was a pump down behind the dike that would pump water up the hill towards the house and into a cistern.  The setup was in existence when my parents bought the farm in 1953.  Once the water was pumped into the cistern it would be again pumped for watering livestock and for general household washing.  It was used for washing clothes and keeping the bathroom running. 

My brother Rex mowed a path through the orchard grass all the way down to behind the pond so we could easily walk down there to put gas in the old fashion engine that would pump the water.  Once he had done that as a creative notion, it was continually done every year.  You can see that I am standing in that path the takes off to the left in the photo.  

The previous owners had planted an orchard down by the pond.  I suppose they thought that it would be a good place next to water to have apple trees and cherry trees.  They produced moderate amounts of fruit as the trees didn't get pruned very often.  

The old photo shows the discoloration of its being kept in a plastic album all these years. The kodachrome didn't survive as well as one would have expected it to last.