Indiana Jones and the cistern of doom

As I write this, I’m 51 years old.  My husband and I have been married now for almost 30 years.  Which means we’ve gotten ourselves into some funny situations sometimes.  And with that many years under your belt, you just have to reflect and laugh a little bit at yourself. 

Living here in the verdant hills of Kentucky, we knew that we wanted to implement as many off-grid elements as we could here.  A cistern can be very helpful to that end, once you have spent a bazillion dollars to drill a water well.  We researched and ordered a 3,000 gallon tank.  At that time, we’d been living here for about 4 years.  And had learned that not just anybody would drive down our quarter-of-a-mile gravel driveway to deliver packages and such. So, when we ordered this tank, we told the manufacturer that they needed to use a delivery service that would be able to make sharp turns, and navigate off the paved county roads.  Meaning a “smallish” type delivery truck.  “Yes,” they said they understood and could accommodate.

The day of the delivery arrived.  GPS was pretty spotty out here back then, so we knew to keep an eye out for folks who might accidentally pass our house.  From our office window we could see a huge, and I mean huge, semi truck idling at the end of our driveway with an open flatbed trailer.  Just sitting there.  Not moving, not delivering his load.  So, quickly my husband drove down to meet with the driver. 

Now I’m telling this story from my vantage point.  Which was at the house, a quarter of a mile down the driveway, looking out my window.  I see Ed talking to the driver for a few minutes.  I see him walking around looking at the load on the flatbed trailer.  Next, I see Ed speeding back down our driveway.  With our own trailer he speeds back out to the delivery truck.  Our trailer was a 4’x5’ steel mesh utility trailer.  Your basic “I need to haul something that I don’t want to try and fit in the back of my SUV” type trailer.  And I watch with baited breath to see what would happen next.  Somehow the delivery driver gets the cistern off his flatbed and it is just sitting there on the driveway.  Off the driver goes, leaving Ed still standing there next to the cistern.  Now I don’t think I’m alone here in my expectation of “delivery.”  “Delivered” does not mean a quarter-of-a-mile from the actual delivery location.  A quarter-of-a-mile people!

And here’s where the story goes sideways.  I see Ed get back into his vehicle, with the trailer attached to it, driving very slowly back to the house.  But the cistern is NOT ON the trailer.  It is ROLLING behind it.  I should mention that our driveway is sort-of straight and sloped down toward the house.  So, Ed is slowly driving down, with the big rubber/plastic cistern rolling behind it like Ed is the leader of a very short train.  And I’m thinking to myself, “can we do that?  Does that work?” 

Then as if watching this in slow motion, the cistern begins to vere off away from the train.  Oh it’s still rolling of course.  Remember….slope.  I see Ed stop driving, get out of the driver’s seat, and begin running behind a huge black cylinder which is beginning to really pick up some speed.  He runs behind it for about 15 seconds until it is quite obvious that this thing is about to leave the county.  I watch as the hurtling cistern hits a small berm in the field, and it literally launches into the air.  When it hits the ground again it completely mows down everything in its wake as it disappears into the wooded tree line. 

I immediately put on my rubber boots and run out to where Ed is now standing, looking with astonishment into the dark woods.  Trying to make sure to use calming words, I ask “so… what should we do now?”  What we did was call our neighbor, who hays our fields each season, with his nice big tractor that has all kinds of attachments that can grab large round things (like hay bales or wayward cisterns).  When the neighbor arrives, he sort of blows out a “lawdy, how’d it get in there?” opening statement.

You may not believe me when I tell you that despite rolling down our gravel driveway, then launching into the air, hitting the ground, mowing down all sorts of scrub brush, coming to a rest on all the underbrush of the woods, being hauled out with moving straps and a hay fork, then carried on a tractor the rest of the way to our house…..it did not get punctured.  Everything was still intact. 

We still use this cistern to this day.  Holds 3,000 gallons of water like a champ.  But should we ever need to reenact a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark country style, we know just what to do.