New world in the corral

[Valley Ranch]

We had torrential rains a week ago. We had a lake in the corral and the barn was flooded. We added a shed roof to move the rain away from the barn but I was repairing the tractor and the hump that prevented the water from running off was still there when it rained again. The barn was dry but the corrall was a lake. It was still raining, I began digging and the water slowly started to move from the corral. In the middle of the Great Corral Lake islands began to raise, then peninsulas, soon whole continents. It was like the world after the great flood. I could do this well having perfected the channeling of water as a little boy in puddles on the ranch. I dug on, the stalion standing next to me urging me on. Then I could see a bright new future for the emerging earth in the corral, suddenly!! my daughter, who appeared form nowhere, said " daddy, come inside its really cold out here, you're gona get sick, its beginning to snow."
I was roughly pulled back! What did she think, that this was play? Couldn't she see this was work? Pulling the shovel from my hands and towing me by the elbow, the little girl led me away.
The stalion looked after me, he knew, we would talk later, he saw!

 

[goodhors]

We have kind of worked thru that stage of farm owning. Over the years we have dug, tiled, filled, to speed the runoff of our rainstorms. Sometimes "playing in the water" was fun, not so much other times! Years when I got double trailer truckloads of gravel fill, as my Christmas present. And I LOVED them because my boots no longer got sucked off walking thru the corral!!

I feel for your horse, maybe he will find an island to stand on, until you and shovel can return. Just seeing the movement of water, changes from a few holes for draining under the fence, makes you want to "improve all things" right away!!

Have to say that rental machines can make doing improvements to drainage, EVEN MORE fun than shoveling! Like a giant sandbox with unlimited dirt and water!! Husband had so much fun, improvements got speeded up on the time schedule.

 

[patandchickens]

I can totally relate.

We live on a very low property that floods quite a few times each year from snowmelt and from big lines of t'storms just sitting here. The house itself is ok, and the chickens always stay about 1" above waterline, but everything else on the front of the property (including the barn, sigh - WE did not put it there!) floods considerably. So anytime we get a thaw, or rain over snow, or spring meltoff, or a big line of thunderstorms, I'm out there with my shovel and other implements, tuning the ditches and clearing clogs that form and generally expediting the effort of all that water to leave our property.

And you know, I really ENJOY it. I used to be an aquatic biologist so part of it is the nostalgia value of standing out there in freezing water in the dark in water-filled boots staring into murky depths ; but I think most of it goes all the way back to when I was a kid and I used to like to watch the water in streams and in the gutters along the curb, and pretend it was a great landscape, and mentally 'explore' it.

And like you said, isn't it just GREAT seeing all that water WHOOOOSH on out, because of YOUR efforts, like making the tide go out and reveal all this fertile land to be resettled

I have to say, after 7 years here and MUCH MUCH hand digging of ditches and installation of additional culverts, it is also a lot better than it used to be.

Congrats on your labors,

Pat, who does NOT at all enjoy the part about shovelling all the snow out of the drainage ditches BEFORE a January thaw; and who is not especially enthusiastic about redigging ditches while they are still dry, which is why they remain as-yet-undone this year although I'd really better get to them soon!

 

[Valley Ranch]

We are going to open a door through the center stall into the lower corral, that way the horses can go down there, the goat can climb on the rocks in the upper corral. We won't have to walk the horses down through the snow. All of them like the hillside including the chickens, they can take their choice.
We have a hydrant out there this year so with the heated water containers there is less works for the girls.
The girls work hard, cleaning the hoves every day. caring for the horses, milking the goats and tending the chickens. They raised the chicks from day old. This year we have the loft full of hay, grain and pellets so no hauling feed through many feet of snow.
We're down to 3 horses that will make an easier winter.

 

[goodhors]

We have worked to get things as easy as possible for winter chores. No one wants to be out when the hard winds are blowing!

Small livestock is all gone until next summer. We don't have any birds, so heated water is only needed for the horses, in two tanks. We have tanks in insulated, covered boxes. Only plug them in overnight when horses are in the barn, cheaper electric then. They stay liquid all day, even in single digits.

Only one daughter left at home, she does night chores of stall cleaning and bringing in the 7 horses for the nights. We help her with feeding and filling stall buckets. I spread the bedding when she is done so it doesn't freeze in the spreader. Frozen manure is BAD!

We built the barn on LOADS of fill, so it is above the rest of the land. Everything drops away on one side, heading towards the river with drainage ditches. I just keep my ditches well mowed, then spray with Round-up when they dry out in summer. Spraying keeps the grass and weeds down for faster drainage times. Ditches with dirt bottoms stay slick, don't catch leaves to make more dirt. Shovel work is for lifting the lid over where underground tube turns, so it gets air to drain better and faster. We get the water about 3 hours after torrential storms, since we are the bottom of the drainage runoff system where all the water collects to enter the ditch tubes.

I DO have fun with the water and my mud boots. We didn't let the kids out as small children, the force of runoff could knock them down, really pulls at you. And water then, before improvements, could be 6-10 inches deep thru the back yard. Swept our bridges over into the yard before we put the underground tubes in.

Really dry here now, we could use some rain. Probably have to rain a few days before we even had runoff or puddles standing.

 

[patandchickens]

I just keep my ditches well mowed, then spray with Round-up when they dry out in summer. Spraying keeps the grass and weeds down for faster drainage times. Ditches with dirt bottoms stay slick, don't catch leaves to make more dirt.

I use a weedwhacker for the same purpose. Wait til ditch is dry, then scalp the bottom real good, down to bare earth. Two thumbs up It is amazing how very much faster water flows over smooth bare earth than over short grass, and how much faster over *short* grass than a ditch choked with weeds and tall fallen-over stuff.

Shovel work is for lifting the lid over where underground tube turns, so it gets air to drain better and faster.

Unfortunately we have a very flat property with minimal slope to the ditches, so mine are continually silting in. Once a year, or at most every year and a half, they just need to have a few inches of dirt removed (which is easiest to shovel when it's wet dirt, but easiest to get correctly level/sloped when it's actually carrying a bit of water, so I usually end up doing the 'shoveling underwater' thing although ideally only under an inch or three of water)

We get the water about 3 hours after torrential storms, since we are the bottom of the drainage runoff system where all the water collects to enter the ditch tubes.

In our midwinter thaws, the tide starts to rise *very suddenly* in our backyard at usually about 3 or 4 p.m., hits high water mark around 9 p.m. and then goes back down due to the source watershed being once-again frozen. It's really funny. You look out the window at 3 and see nothing; at 3:15 there is a small patch of water-saturated snow in the "uphill-most" low spots; at 3:30 it's made it all the way across the backyard and by 4 p.m. it has expanded tenfold or more and the driveway culvert is entirely submerged, surf's up!

The main horse paddock does the same thing. 90% of it is too high to ever flood, but there is a strip across one edge that gets runoff from our back fields and beyond, with a meltwater stream at least 30' across and 16" deep in parts going across it. Yet I have very very seldom actually SEEN this running (only when there is a lot of rain on top of a big meltoff) because it does not typically start till after dark, and is shut off and drained/frozen by morning.

Surface-water hydrology is fun, as long as nothing important is in the way of it

(For one thing it's why we could afford this place The house and barn were originally built by Standardbred people who went to great expense to create a 1/2 mile training track, raised up above mud level in the low part of the property. The raised track of course COMPLETELY cuts off the natural flow of water in all directions, which then ponds and floods really badly behind it. The STB people moved on after just a few years, but the property had another 25+ yrs of owners after that, NONE OF WHOM thought to CUT DITCHES THROUGH the long-since-gone-back-to-grass track berm. Instead they ran gas-powered pumps to pump the water OVER the berms, very slowly. So that was one of the first things we did here (especially after discovering the barn was regularly flooding to at least 12"). Amazingly, when you let the water GO somewhere, not nearly as much ACCUMULATES. People amaze me.)

Pat