Your Scribe has always been intrigued by things hydo.

So here it is, the first introduction of (low) technology to the well at the cabin. A blue bucket for dipping. The time-honored water-yielding structure was finished last month, and now I am dipping like a beatific Babylonian at the village well.

A major decision awaits - whether to install a pump or just have a basic 11th century dipping device with bucket and crank.

While waiting for the Brookings Institute report on which is advisable for my modest needs, I have "installed" the bucket.

Don't laugh. It works.

By some law of hydro science, the bucket turns on its side when lowered. I should say dropped.

I let the 8-ounce bucket fall (about 12 feet) and when it hits the water, it turns on its side. Water fills it, and Your Scribe happily pulls it up through the miracle of a hand-to-hand device called a rope.

I haven't had this much satisfaction since I learned how to manipulate tinker-toys in my childhood during the Hoover Administration.

Other hydro highlights of my life in Maine: contemplating the many mills (and lives) that were built on river banks; observing the Androscoggin and wondering if all those bubbles and slicks were natural elements as the millowners said; pondering Machias Bay and wondering if engineers would ever "tame the tides" for hydro power as they propose about every decade.

And I relish the time I spent in an apartment in Skowhegan overlooking the Kennebec. I was entranced watching the river slide swiftly past the century-old mill building. (An aside, possibly alarming: I can't remember what the mill produced.)

That being said, I am more comfortable with the technology pictured above than the hydro technology used in commerce. I don't say I can fully explain the Law of Dipping but it seems to work every time. As it has, for many centuries.

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