Drilling for Water

Friday Chuck & I spent the day on the Arizona Strip being pioneers. We have 80 acres on the rim that we'd like to build a cabin on. No water and no electricity is holding us back. Chuck and his friend Devin made 2 trips to Phoenix last year to test for and acquire water drilling licenses. Now after much work in Lund, he is ready to get onto another project. He has set up a rig and started the drill down into the Shinarump to get to the Moenkopi.
Chuck and Devin drilled down 18 feet and on the 2nd day another 21 feet. Chuck and I added 4 more 5 ft rods and then added another. It took from 9am to 4pm to get 20 ft. On the 5th rod about 1/3 down (about 1/2 hr) I had hold of the winch handle and it took off spinning and the pipe dropped the last 2/3 in about 45 seconds. I thought it broke and Chuck thought we hit a hole. We added another rod and the hole swallowed it too. Chuck realized that the metal had probably worn through on the sandstone. We (mostly he) pulled the rods up and took them apart one by one. We pulled up 10 X 5 ft and found that the thick rod/stem connector had worn through.
Now he has to build a device to retrieve the 4 stem/rods at the bottom of the hole so that he can continue to drill.
I did enjoy being with him (sort of like being on the deck of a ship with a lounge chair and a book with no ocean)but it was mighty hot and we are in suspense about the chance of hitting water. Actually the suspense is part of the adventure. If this hole doesn't find water, he is going looking for a water witch
Sometime during the day I told him that maybe we ought to change our ways and start living a simple life. He says it's too late and we wouldn't like it anyway.