Does anyone here have information about building and using a spring house to keep fruits, vegetables, and milk and eggs cold. Louis Bromfield worte in one of his books about building a trough to run the spring water through. His idea was to build a roadside stand with spring water to keep vegetables fresh. I went in a spring house built just like this on time.

I was looking at a very unusual property in Southern California about 5 years ago. This property had a very reliable year round spring which some industrious homesteader had built a cement cave into the side of a hill. Inside the spring ran though a trough about six inches deep out into the open where the unused water rand into a holding tank. This spring watered the whole property. The cave approx. 20 feet into the side of the hill. This situation is also ideal for aging cheese. In France there are caves used just for aging cheese like this. Any thoughts on this?

Little Bit Farm

-- Little bit farm (littleBit@compworldnet.com), October 18, 2001

Answers

There was a beautiful homestead along a road we took fairly regularly in SW Missouri where the house, barn and a spring house were all built from the same field stone. I always wondered about the spring house, how effective, etc. The one thing that put me off about the whole idea was that the water in a pool in front of the building was always nasty looking. I would surely check water quality before using the spring house. I know the food items are in containers, or should be, before setting them in the trough, but it just seems like an easy source of contamination if you didn't carefully wash the outsides each time you used it.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), October 20, 2001.