Moving water with wind

Hello all!

First post.  I've had 7 acres in eastern SD for several years now and began a very loose permaculture initiative.  Mostly some raised beds, forestry, rain barrels, and some fruit trees and bushes.  Raising kids, making money, serving in the military has made it difficult to dedicate the time necessary to really develop the land.

That's all changing now.  I'll be retiring from the military and with fortuitous savings I'll be able to retire soon (at 41!).  Now is the time to get serious!  My plan is to install a network of small ponds (3 or 4) for water catchment connected by dry river beds flowing down my property to a larger pond (30' x 50').  I want to run PVC pipe under my dry creek beds resupplying the ponds up the slope (60ish feet of head) for periods of drought and occasionally aerating the water.  

Now, I could get a well pump and spend some money, but I'd like to be more creative if possible.  I'm in the middle of one of the biggest inland wind farms in the country.  They knew what they were doing when it came to building here.  High consistent winds year round.  I'd like to use this resource, if possible, to pump the water uphill and/or from the small ponds to groves and planted areas.  I have one double windmill pump from the early homestead I'm going to see if I can restore and implement.  Probably going to water the pasture livestock if I can get it to work.

Some other ideas I thought of:
Homemade diaphragm pump (low volume) with windmill
Using a repurposed v6 or similar to use the intake to take water in and the exhaust to dispel the water turning the crank and timing chain by belt/chain driven windmill

Anybody else have any experience with this and know of the problems I'm likely to encounter or have other, better, ideas?

Hey, Welcome to Permies!
I think moving water with wind is a great idea. I'm not sure about using a car engine though - the seals are usually against oil, and the loads in moving them will make it all tricky. You can make a simple pump with a spiral, or an archemedes screw. I think those would be the simplest to make yourself. Maybe a peristaltic pump using rollers against a hose might work too?
What sort of head and flow were you aiming for?

 My plan is to install a network of small ponds (3 or 4) for water catchment connected by dry river beds flowing down my property to a larger pond (30' x 50').

I got stuck on the words "dry river beds".

Any idea why they are dry or for how long they've been dry?
1. Is it because of deforestation, in which case, planting could help a bunch.
2. Is it because of beaver removal long ago, in which case beaver dam analogues and brush dams could help a lot.
3. Is it because of a shift of weather patterns affecting snow accumulation, in which case, planting trees or making berms and hugels to encourage the snow to slow down and land and melt slowly in the spring could help a lot.

Sorry, I don't know much about wind pumped water other than that it can be done. I will mention that there's a permaculture site on Orcas Island,
Bullock's Permaculture Homestead, and they has some sort of antique water pump which they used to move the water back up to the top of their slope. (https://www.permacultureportal.com/) This is very old memory - I think it was either diesel or converted to solar as the power source. However the part you need to know is about the actual pump as they seemed to write positive comments about it. I suspect it could run off wind with appropriate adaptation.

Just adding this nice write-up on the older water-pumping windmills so common to the midwestern prairies.  Maybe something here that you can use in modified form.  
https://www.backwoodshome.com/water-pumping-windmills/#:~:text=A%20stuffing%20box%20is%20only,a%20watering%20trough%20or%20pond.

My guess would be that you wish to use all of the ponds to collect water, largely perhaps from spring snowmelt, with oversupply in good years overflowing the small ponds and down to the larger one for storage (???),  Then, perhaps, if needed, pumping the larger pond up to desired smaller ponds for use more immediately.  Seems like it should be feasible with the right set-up, either  by direct wind-powered pumping or wind/solar battery charging and electrical pump operation. Good luck!

I would look at either.
- a water windmill or
- a windmill that produces electricity and fit an electric pump
- solar powered water pump

I was actually just looking at the Venturi Effect thread and now I'm wondering if you can use that somehow to move the water. Most places probably couldn't move it very far with that concept but the high winds there might justify a quick test with a milk gallon or something

Nancy, I'd be looking at 18 m of head at the worst with the longest run being 130-150 meters.  I'm looking for "creative" ideas if possible.  Love the peristaltic pump idea.  I would be tearing apart and rubberizing all the seals if I used an old motor someone has laying around.  I got the idea from someone here that made a fountain pump out of a 2-stroke mower and small wind wheel.  The heads would require extensive reworking to make a 4-stroke work.  Could be out of my depth, but I'm willing to try.

Jay, To be clearer, I'd be making the dry creek beds with a lot of clay, field rock, and the John Deere.  They would be dry when runoff isn't traveling from one pond to another.  John W. is right in that I'm looking to collect winter runoff and then be able to refill in times of drought.  One of the other big reasons for these smaller ponds is to create a wildlife area and a Duck habitat for my layers.  My ground is almost all sloped prairie with 3-12% grade sloping in one general direction.  Soil runoff is a problem in spots.  I've done some work to control the worst of it, but haven't put a bigger plan into place.  Trees are slow and affect the prairie look we've come to love (we have ~200 trees on 7 acres as it is).

John W., Thanks for the reference!  I have some of this material already on the farm.  

John D., These were the approaches I initially thought of.  I've maintained both types in years past at other people's farms before I could get my own.  I've spent most of my career as an engineer of types and love a good Rube Goldberg machine.  Working metal, wood, plastic, glass, electronics, cnc programming, etc. is all stuff I've comfortable with.  

The Venturi effect? Like with compressed air?

Thanks everyone for the responses!  Super excited to get going on this project!

There is a guy on utube that uses air to pump water out of his well. "fry TV" maybe
He pumps it into the well, then as the air rises up the pipe it takes water with it.
His well was only 21 feet deep.

Some photos would be great.
I have used a line of single rocks on contour to catch soiul, I learned that from Africa.
It works well, but you do need a 'rock farm" for material.