Water dipper and bucket

 The bucket was enameled, though. I drank from the windmill pump head, and from the irrigation well also. The latter was coooold, straight fresh up from 160 feet down.

Oh yeah...I dont think ithe cup ever got washed! We loved to do like the cowboys did and go down to the creek and get on our knees and drink out of cupped hands....only difference was that it wasn't fresh mountain water and the cows no doubt left lots of yuckiness behind when they drank. We were never sick and we survived. Oh how far we've come with bottled water and hand sanitizer!?!

Well I never drank like the cowboys (cowgirls) did but I doubt the dipper was ever washed. Seems we were never sick.

That fresh well water from the dipper was sure good.

I won't get into the issue of where our well was....

Cupped hands under the flow of the 6 inch pipe out of the irrigation pump, that was ice cold. I hate to admit, but sometimes I was working out in the field resetting/moving the siphons from the irrigation ditch, hot sun, get thirsty, I'd drink from the irrigation ditch. It would be moving pretty fast, a 6 inch pipe puts out a lot of flow. No dipper there.

That system really put Dad to an awful lot of work. Worked him to death, perhaps literally. Endless work in the season... and every season. I used to clean out stalls in the barn, and from outside.... I can't imagine that now.

(Tom) My Uncle had a spring that was improved to provide water that flowed out of a pipe that was partially buried in the ground. The dipper hung on the pipe and everyone used the dipper. In the dairy on our farm there was a large tank of milk kept at 31 degrees. an agitator stirred it to keep it from freezing. There was s dipper in the milkhouse and on a hot day making hay, it was a place to take a break for a cold drink. The dipper was washed between dips into the tank, but one dip might be passed around. You couldn't drink much without freezing your head.

Hi Tom, that is interesting. Well I expect the spring was supplying good water.

I will go ahead and say it; I can't imagine it now, but.... our windmill was next to the stock tank of course, but.... that was at a low spot in the cattle yard downhill from the barn.

As to the tank part: The farm my uncle got from grandmother had a wooden windmill constantly pumping into a tank - concrete - inside a shed, then the overflow went on out to a stock tank downhill, and the overflow from that went to a hog tank. (As I remember.) The tank in the shed, then, was always cold, and the milk cans, butter, etc. were kept cold in that tank.