We are so grateful that we didn't have any major damage from the recent snow melt and incredible rainfall. Our hearts are breaking for all those near us who have experienced a lot of damage from the storms.
So awesome to see what you did and hear your ideas! I just spent two hours in the rain digging ditches ("baby swales" lol) and was afraid I was crazy for doing this, but you spoke to my heart when you shared that it is easier to dig in the rain! Thanks so much!
I always feel strange out in the pouring rain, digging away! But it really is the best time to see how the drainage flows. So glad you got some baby swales dug and I bet you'll start seeing the benefits right away!
Yes! It’s sooo green here! It never ceases to amaze me as a born and raised desert girl! Keep on experimenting and you’ll eventually arrive at a great solution! 💕
6 inches, thats heavy rain - under normal cicumstances. Compare that to 750 mm (31, 25 inches) that the area of Lismore, NSW, Australia got in 2022. Within 24 hours.Their hourly record during that rain was 180 mm = 7,5 inches. For those familiar with the metric scale - 1 cm. The most severe flooding in the floodplain around Lismore - they had the last severe in 2016 but this was even worse. Geoff Lawton's permaculture farm Zaytuna fared pretty well during that even (also with lots of ponds, dams, backup for overflow etc.) Not to forget clumping bamboo that secured the site under a failing dam. No erosion but they have to rebuild this pond / dam - it was only capable to stand a 20 year event, not a 100 year event. 10 mm (= 1 cm = approx. 0,42 inches) of rain means 10 liter of water per square meter.
Glad to see someone finally thinking on a small scale. Seems like every time I turn around, folks are talking about huge swales and holding ponds that require a backhoe to dig. Small little bits you you did.... perfect. The only thing I would add would be to make more of them and interconnect them all so that your pasture can be thoroughly saturated. Shallow depressions that take the run-off along a zig zag course through the grass, pooling a little bit here and there, would deliver the water to more territory without creating a mess that would be hard to mow. Of course, with that much square footage of roof, I'd absolutely prioritize getting some thousand gallon tanks to store the water. The grass can be irrigated with overflow, or just draining the tanks entirely. That much water in tanks would be great for watering the livestock and just bragging about!
Absolutely! It’s all in the ultimate design plan! We can’t wait to get more channels and ponds dug throughout the pasture along with holding tanks. The calculated amount of rain catchment that we have just off the arena is about 105,000 gallons! Excited to see how we can transform the landscape through the years by capturing and retaining more water on site through a variety of methods. I will definitely share the progress and results along the way! 😃
@@RootedRevival 105K? Wow, that's a lot of water!! There's no way you could use that much water in a year, but you might be able to sell it when things get dry. 😁 Something else that might help you with both the water and the livestock --- hedgerows. The British have a long history of using living fences to block off pastures so we know it works. The hedges also happen to drink up a lot of the water in the landscape, helping to either sink it in the soil via their roots, or transpire it up to the clouds. Either way, it makes for a good fence that's cheaper in the long run than three-strand barbed wire and the like. Installing the hedgerow is time consuming and a bit pricey, but you can get a something that will last for hundreds of years and look really cool the whole time.
The best improvement anyone can do to their land that is wet is get rid of horses . Horses are the most destructive animal on the land ever . They race around and absolutely tear up wet land and even just walking on wet land they make a mess . If you insist on having horses then in the winter Months turn them out onto a huge paddock where the foot print isn’t being concentrated to a small area and bring them in at night to a gravelled area . A lot of work though for an animal that is effectively a huge pet that don’t bring any monetary returns .
![Swales: Earthworks for Conservation and Storage [PDC Preview]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/W-f2genlUZI/mqdefault.jpg)
![Swales: Earthworks for Conservation and Storage [PDC Preview]](/img/tr.png)
We are so grateful that we didn't have any major damage from the recent snow melt and incredible rainfall. Our hearts are breaking for all those near us who have experienced a lot of damage from the storms.
So awesome to see what you did and hear your ideas! I just spent two hours in the rain digging ditches ("baby swales" lol) and was afraid I was crazy for doing this, but you spoke to my heart when you shared that it is easier to dig in the rain! Thanks so much!
I always feel strange out in the pouring rain, digging away! But it really is the best time to see how the drainage flows. So glad you got some baby swales dug and I bet you'll start seeing the benefits right away!
It is greener in that area! We have rain issues too. Trying to figure some things out and do a little pond somewhere too. Keep on going indeed!
Yes! It’s sooo green here! It never ceases to amaze me as a born and raised desert girl! Keep on experimenting and you’ll eventually arrive at a great solution! 💕
6 inches, thats heavy rain - under normal cicumstances. Compare that to 750 mm (31, 25 inches) that the area of Lismore, NSW, Australia got in 2022. Within 24 hours.Their hourly record during that rain was 180 mm = 7,5 inches. For those familiar with the metric scale - 1 cm. The most severe flooding in the floodplain around Lismore - they had the last severe in 2016 but this was even worse. Geoff Lawton's permaculture farm Zaytuna fared pretty well during that even (also with lots of ponds, dams, backup for overflow etc.) Not to forget clumping bamboo that secured the site under a failing dam. No erosion but they have to rebuild this pond / dam - it was only capable to stand a 20 year event, not a 100 year event. 10 mm (= 1 cm = approx. 0,42 inches) of rain means 10 liter of water per square meter.
Glad to see someone finally thinking on a small scale. Seems like every time I turn around, folks are talking about huge swales and holding ponds that require a backhoe to dig. Small little bits you you did.... perfect. The only thing I would add would be to make more of them and interconnect them all so that your pasture can be thoroughly saturated. Shallow depressions that take the run-off along a zig zag course through the grass, pooling a little bit here and there, would deliver the water to more territory without creating a mess that would be hard to mow.
Of course, with that much square footage of roof, I'd absolutely prioritize getting some thousand gallon tanks to store the water. The grass can be irrigated with overflow, or just draining the tanks entirely. That much water in tanks would be great for watering the livestock and just bragging about!
Absolutely! It’s all in the ultimate design plan! We can’t wait to get more channels and ponds dug throughout the pasture along with holding tanks. The calculated amount of rain catchment that we have just off the arena is about 105,000 gallons! Excited to see how we can transform the landscape through the years by capturing and retaining more water on site through a variety of methods. I will definitely share the progress and results along the way! 😃
@@RootedRevival 105K? Wow, that's a lot of water!! There's no way you could use that much water in a year, but you might be able to sell it when things get dry. 😁
Something else that might help you with both the water and the livestock --- hedgerows. The British have a long history of using living fences to block off pastures so we know it works. The hedges also happen to drink up a lot of the water in the landscape, helping to either sink it in the soil via their roots, or transpire it up to the clouds. Either way, it makes for a good fence that's cheaper in the long run than three-strand barbed wire and the like.
Installing the hedgerow is time consuming and a bit pricey, but you can get a something that will last for hundreds of years and look really cool the whole time.
The best improvement anyone can do to their land that is wet is get rid of horses . Horses are the most destructive animal on the land ever . They race around and absolutely tear up wet land and even just walking on wet land they make a mess . If you insist on having horses then in the winter Months turn them out onto a huge paddock where the foot print isn’t being concentrated to a small area and bring them in at night to a gravelled area . A lot of work though for an animal that is effectively a huge pet that don’t bring any monetary returns .