FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
SIDELINES SEPTEMBER 2014 109
Florida was like magic. You literally hit
water like 20 inches deep! But not in
West Virginia, you didn’t … water was
elusive and it was gold!
The Wilsons lived on our farm for
at least three months, although it
truly felt like three lifetimes. One day
one of the brothers
finally
said, “Ms.
Mailloux, we hit water.” Mind you,
I’m thinking gusher! No, this 450-foot
well produced about two gallons per
hour — so my relief quickly dwindled.
And the well digging continued. In
the end, we had four wells, two were
capped off due to problems, and that
left us with two very slow-functioning
wells with slightly briny water, thanks
to the limestone of the West Virginia
mountains. However, the horses loved
it! Lucky for us!
Step Two: Do a Perc Test
This step seems like simple, practi-
cal advice for anyone involved in own-
ing and building on a piece of land
they purchased: Do a percolation test
and build in the vicinity of said “perked”
area. Now in Florida, I sell real estate,
and most homes in this area are on
city water and sewer, so this is a moot
point. But in West Virginia it’s a differ-
ent story and it’s home of the “unperk-
able” land!
You’d think that there would be one
area on a 100-acre farm that would
perc, right? Not only did we not find
an area close to the building site to
perc, as we didn’t have many build-
ing site options due to the “hilliness”
of our mountain top, we found no area
at all that perked, thanks in part to the
lovely red clay that was the base of
our beautiful landscape.
The percolation test is designed to
determine the suitability of a site for
a septic system. More specifically, a
percolation test measures the ability
of the soil to absorb liquid. Our soil
absorbed no liquid. Septic system
designers use the results of percola-
tion tests to properly construct septic
systems. So, after we had already
been building the paddock fences
for two years, before actually build-
ing the barn with the apartment and
both the indoor and outdoor arena, we
then had to find a place to excavate
the drainage field area, and fill it with
porous material, and put in a “mound”
system and a leach field. Basically, it’s
a big hump on top of the ground that’s
your septic system. The point behind
it is to distribute the sewage over a
greater square footage, thus requiring
less perc per square foot.
My budget was rapidly beginning to
Finished arena
Before landscaping
Six days to an arena
