Adventures In Homesteading (Day 19)

Hello Everyone!

Well behaved dogs, Lots of exploratory digging, A floating berm, Clearing vegetation & The farm pond locale is coming along!

Alright, it is several hours earlier than it was yesterday when I did my writing routine... and although I could have waited longer... I decided to take a small siesta... and see if I can get a little more ahead of the curve with my timing. Eventually, I may wind up writing this series first thing in the morning (while the dogs are still sleeping) because getting my timing and theirs lined up... has been challenging to say the least.

Such is life in a camp with a bunch of dogs and chickens though... and for now I just have to keep making do for myself (and the animals) the best that I can. For the dogs part they have been super well behaved... and even downright compliant... so perhaps some of their stubbornness has begun to fade now that they are getting into their elder years.

On a similar note, I had a moment this morning where I flat out begged Good Girl to stop whining for me just because I am further away than she can see... and amazingly she did exactly that... and I was able to truly focus on the stuff that I was working on. As I have remarked upon before... all that extra hiking around that I have been doing (to tend to her) has been quite extreme... and burning off way to many calories.

Anyways, my big project this morning was to do some more exploratory digging in a few areas (within a single gulch) that I have dug in before. In the first area I even built this rather long 'floating berm' just to start the process of making a dam and a pool there... whether I actually find water or not... because the terrain is simply too perfect for me to miss the chance to do it.

The berm itself was a collection of rotting logs, sticks of all sizes, along with a bunch of saplings (and their leafy branches) that I cut out of the area so that I could work in it. To be clear some of the tree removal was necessary because the roots are not good for a spring site... and trees tend to soak up a lot of water... which is a commodity that I am trying to retain in the area.

I cannot quite recall how many holes that I dug today... but by the end of it I had the process of doing so down to a science given how little rock (or stone) there has been in the areas that I have been digging. In essence, I am digging as deep as I can vertically with the post-hole diggers... and then using my long handled rock/tamp bar like a big drill bit... and going down into the ground another few feet (a little less than a meter) with it to see if I can strike on some water.

In one place in particular I got down to around six feet (almost two meters) with the bar... and pierced a layer that had a void that then turned into gravel. Basically, that is exactly the kind of thing that I am looking for... because that 'void' is most likely an underground route for surface water which is fine for utility and irrigation purposes if I choose to capture it.

What I am actually looking for is a place (even deep below ground) where water is coming out of a fissure between large rocks... but at this point... I will settle for whatever kind of water that I can find. The good news is that on most of my deeper 'probe' holes (made with the rock bar) the last foot of it or so came back very damp... and a few times it even had little pieces of (very moist) white clay stuck to it.

Near the base of the hill there is that large outcropping of rock (that will border the first farm pond) and I have no idea how long that I spent cleaning up around it today. Once I got most of the small trees, rotting logs and other unwanted vegetation out of the area... it is much easier to see just how easy it would be to smooth out the ground, build a very small dam... lay down some clay... and then stretch out a pond liner to make a pond.

There are several larger trees (and their roots) that would need to be dealt with before a pond could be built there... but overall none of the trees are all that big. Even the place where the dam would have to be built already has some nice sized boulders located in it... which will save me the hassle of having to move some to that location.

Well, I am going to keep this entry short and sweet... so that I can get back to working on things now that it has started to cool down some. I hope that everyone is doing well. Ta ta for now.

This rock looks like some kind of dinosaur skull!

This was the first area that I worked in today!

This is that same area about halfway through the digging and berm building.

The small hole is the one created by 'drilling' with my rock bar!

I capped the holes with pieces of concrete to keep the critters and leaves out of them!

This is the area that I am thinking to put the farm pond in at!

More concrete used to cover the hole at the pond site!

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Cheers! & Hive On!

All content found in this post is mine!oncr