Steven Avery
Administrator
Extract from
COUNTERFEIT CULTURE: A MEMOIR ABOUT LEAVING A RELIGIOUS CULT
by Keith Brown
The Water Situation
(p. 80 in book, 82 in Kindle)
There had never been a master plan to install a decent water system on the Homestead land. Pipes were laid here and there and never marked, so digging a hole for a fencepost or anything else risked hitting a water line, leaving the entire community without water. Then, a plumber had to be tracked down to remedy the situation as we watched a geyser in the yard.
The plumbing system at our house was a giant PVC puzzle. With each new installation, we put in a new filtration system, more pipes, and seemingly miles of intake and exit water lines, which zigzagged along the walls of the shop behind our house. The well water was full of iron, and lots of other minerals. Without a filter it came out of the faucet red. We frequently replaced toilets and appliances due to the hard water clogging them up. We made multiple efforts to change the hard calcium, red iron water from the Homestead well into clear, usable water. There also were pipes and water lines around the perimeter of the shop that ran everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. Most of them went to some abandoned device that had never been removed.
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At times, in order to wipe out any invading bacteria, gallons of bleach were dumped in the big, black, algae-invading cisterns. One visitor who stayed at the Homestead guest house said she took a shower and came out a bleached blonde.
This was the same scenario for all the water systems on Brazos de Dios, the name given to the Homestead land except one. Brother Blair’s family had an expensive water filtration system with a water softener at his house. The community-salaried farm manager maintained the Adams’ water system on an almost daily basis. He regularly called one of our sons to haul 50-pound bags of salt up the hill behind the house to feed the water softener. For the rest of us the water at Homestead was a source of misery not only because of all the iron and the awful smell, but also because we so often didn’t have any. When my water was cut off, I’d call a neighbor to see if their water was off or if something was wrong with one of our many filtration systems. Many of the people who installed the plumbing were novices assigned to that work on that particular day. A lot of the underground lines had been buried by young boys on a hot workday, and they weren’t trenched deep enough.
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Putting up with this ridiculous water situation was part of our sacrifice of being in the "center of God’s will.” We could have had perfectly clean and clear water like Brother Blair and all of his children’s families had, but Brother Blair’s goal of self-sufficiency was rooted in his hatred for the government and his own desire to control others. He consistently claimed that he didn’t want to be dependent on a public water company, so the rest of us got used to the water cutting off. We adjusted to wearing orange clothes.
By God’s grace, no one had gotten sick, though there were quite a few kidney stones because of the high levels of calcium in the water. Because Blair believed he was God, the leadership thought they could live above the law, at least until a crisis woke them up.
COUNTERFEIT CULTURE: A MEMOIR ABOUT LEAVING A RELIGIOUS CULT
by Keith Brown
The Water Situation
(p. 80 in book, 82 in Kindle)
There had never been a master plan to install a decent water system on the Homestead land. Pipes were laid here and there and never marked, so digging a hole for a fencepost or anything else risked hitting a water line, leaving the entire community without water. Then, a plumber had to be tracked down to remedy the situation as we watched a geyser in the yard.
The plumbing system at our house was a giant PVC puzzle. With each new installation, we put in a new filtration system, more pipes, and seemingly miles of intake and exit water lines, which zigzagged along the walls of the shop behind our house. The well water was full of iron, and lots of other minerals. Without a filter it came out of the faucet red. We frequently replaced toilets and appliances due to the hard water clogging them up. We made multiple efforts to change the hard calcium, red iron water from the Homestead well into clear, usable water. There also were pipes and water lines around the perimeter of the shop that ran everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. Most of them went to some abandoned device that had never been removed.
=====
At times, in order to wipe out any invading bacteria, gallons of bleach were dumped in the big, black, algae-invading cisterns. One visitor who stayed at the Homestead guest house said she took a shower and came out a bleached blonde.
This was the same scenario for all the water systems on Brazos de Dios, the name given to the Homestead land except one. Brother Blair’s family had an expensive water filtration system with a water softener at his house. The community-salaried farm manager maintained the Adams’ water system on an almost daily basis. He regularly called one of our sons to haul 50-pound bags of salt up the hill behind the house to feed the water softener. For the rest of us the water at Homestead was a source of misery not only because of all the iron and the awful smell, but also because we so often didn’t have any. When my water was cut off, I’d call a neighbor to see if their water was off or if something was wrong with one of our many filtration systems. Many of the people who installed the plumbing were novices assigned to that work on that particular day. A lot of the underground lines had been buried by young boys on a hot workday, and they weren’t trenched deep enough.
==============
Putting up with this ridiculous water situation was part of our sacrifice of being in the "center of God’s will.” We could have had perfectly clean and clear water like Brother Blair and all of his children’s families had, but Brother Blair’s goal of self-sufficiency was rooted in his hatred for the government and his own desire to control others. He consistently claimed that he didn’t want to be dependent on a public water company, so the rest of us got used to the water cutting off. We adjusted to wearing orange clothes.
By God’s grace, no one had gotten sick, though there were quite a few kidney stones because of the high levels of calcium in the water. Because Blair believed he was God, the leadership thought they could live above the law, at least until a crisis woke them up.
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