Cleaning the Well House

When Ema was a kid, the farm did not have an electric pump to pull the water out of the well.  Instead, water was drawn from the well using a windmill.  Soon after electricity came to their part of Eaton County, the actual windmill was torn down and the well house was converted to a storage shed.  While the building itself was not large, it was full.    

Gumpy kept his tools, electrical cords, garden hoses, garden tools, chainsaw, chainsaw parts, nails, screws, oil, caulk, hedge trimmer and a feed shovel in the well house.  After digging through to the back one day, we found luggage chests, old Coca-Cola bottles, framed pictures, an incubator from the 1950's and a few assorted weights from my Uncle Jim's workout set.  

Organization of the well house was a subject often discussed without implementation.  For a few years in college, I would begin helping Gumpy empty out the well house.  The task always began with carrying of his equipment out and him deciding he needed to keep it all.  We would then begin to take things out that he felt were Ema's.  This would be working for a few minutes until she caught wind of what we were doing.  Rather than part with anything, she insisted that it all could be sold in a yard sale so we needed to keep it.  Minor bickering would ensue and I would restock the well house with the same items I had just removed.

This seemed to always be part of a pattern that they both enjoyed and frustrated me to no end.  Things changed a little bit the year Gumpy was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  I was allowed to remove the chests and store them in another barn that was better protected from the elements.  That was it.  Understandably, he wanted things left in place so he could feel a bit of normalcy during the chaos his life was becoming.

It seemed odd last week when I went to the farm and the well house was organized.  Someone from church helped Ema get it tidied up.  It seemed to be more spacious than I remember.  It was a welcomed change, a needed change.  I just hope they had as much fun dragging everything out as I use to.