It was pure luck that I found the spring when I first built the house. There was a wet spot in the ground about 300 feet into the woods surrounded by what looked like a semicircle of stones -- mostly buried. But they looked like they'd been placed.
So I brought a shovel, being a curious type, and dug around there, and found the remains of a wood panel door, which must have been used at one time as a cover. Digging further revealed the semicircle was a loose stone wall and it ended against ledge rock. A lot of muck came out and muddy water started to spread around and refill whatever I shoveled. Didn't smell to good to start with! Old leaaves and mud. But I kept on digging and cleared the whole thing out. It was maybe two feet deep, a cistern of sorts, and at the bottom, solid rock with a 2 inch hole out of which clear cold water flowed now that it was freed up. I realized that it was an old spring well. Why it was here in the forest I have no idea.
Anyway, I dug around the old loose fill wall, and built a larger cistern with mortared stone and brought it up above the ground level. I put a pipe into it about half way up, yet still underground, and led that off to the house.
I had to constantly evict frogs while I worked, because they seem to smell water and came from all directions to try out the new pool. They were very persistent! I'd move them 100 feet away, and see them hopping back through the leaves nearby in ten minutes.
Finally I affixed a cover, and that put an end to the public pool. I sent water samples up to the state testing lab in Burlington and the analysis showed that we have really good water. It also tastes good -- people note that when visiting.
I built a second masonry cistern under the house that holds 250 gallons. It gets the water via gravity feed from the spring. A shallow well pump at the house cistern pressurizes the lines in the house. Overflow from the second cistern is piped back downhill toward a nearby stream.
The spring water runs continuously except in a severe drought, as we had a few years ago. But then drilled wells dried up too in the area. The lines to the forest cistern run above ground, except that we cover it with leaves in the fall. Actually it is gradually getting buried as a result. It never freezes, no matter how cold the weather -- or hasn't in the last 12 years.
I once did live in Burlington, and had a house with a water meter. Glad to have lucked into this present water and freer life style!
