Posts Tagged ‘spring melt’
Gates Closed
My least favorite time of year for the horses is when the time comes to restrict their access to the fields. Cyndie made the call this week to close gates so the horses are now confined to the paddocks until the grass grows to at least four inches tall. Hopefully, it won’t take long now that the rain and snow have improved conditions greatly for spring growth.
The grass on the back side of the barn is already looking as green as summer.
The labyrinth isn’t looking very summery.
It hasn’t seen any foot traffic since all the rain and snow fell. The undisturbed surface caught my eye. It’s a nice look.
The opposite was happening just beyond the fence in the back pasture. There were some very prominent tracks from some critter that appeared to be getting taller as the rest of the snow in the field was dwindling.
The low angle of early morning sunlight casts a good shadow for each step taken. I have no idea what animal was plodding along inside the fence.
It is much easier to identify the deer tracks in our woods. There has been a lot of activity visible lately by a fair-sized herd. It appears they have developed a taste for the large batch of acorns that covered the ground under one particular tree this fall. We frequently referred to the trail that passes the tree as a “ball-bearing” zone. The large area of disturbed snow and leaves reflects either a high number of deer present or a hyperactive few.
Looking at the evidence of their activity leaves me feeling for the poor horses who have nothing be a few hay nets to graze until the snow disappears. Then they will put non-stop pressure on any new blades that try to sprout inside the confines of the board fences until the day we get to open the fields back up to them again.
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River Running
Winter has loosed its grip. When we walked the perimeter yesterday morning while the temperature was below freezing, there was little evidence of a meltdown unleashing the spring runoff. By mid-afternoon, the drainage ditches were alive with running water.
The air temperature probably hit 50°F for a bit, resulting in water flowing as if there was an actual river along our southern property border, not just a swale that sits dry most of the time.
The bridge I built along the back pasture fence line was doing its job to perfection as the flow of water across our land poured beneath it into the main ditch just beyond.
If I didn’t know better, I’d be looking to see if I could spot any brook trout flitting around in the current.
From the looks of the extended forecast, we should have a nicely controlled meltdown in the days ahead, with overnight temperatures slowing the thaw for a few hours and daytime warmth climbing well into fast-melting territory.
Manure droppings in the paddock are no longer able to hide beneath snow cover. I’m actually looking forward to getting the place cleaned up again to our usual high standards. The only complication with that plan is that I don’t have a lot of open composting space to dump the couple of wheelbarrows-full it will require. The winters-worth of accumulation doesn’t break down so we’ve already got quite a few stacks that will need to be tended once they thaw. I need to stir the piles up and reshape them to get the composting action heating up so they will break down and shrink enough to begin merging piles together.
The fertilizer factory will be back in full swing before the trees leaf out.
Walking around with no coat on yesterday had me wondering if now would be a good time to take the plow blade off the Grizzly ATV. I don’t like to tempt fate. My mind quickly flashes memories of our first spring here when it snowed 18″ in the first few days of May.
A lot could happen weather-wise in the next month or so. I know from experience not to put away shovels just because the winter snow has all melted away. The plow isn’t hurting anything right where it is for now.
In the meantime, the new road bike I bought over the winter is about to get multiple outings to test how well we get along with each other.
When rivers start flowing through the snow, my bicycling season is nigh.
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Runoff’s Flowin’
The impact of 50°(F) March temperatures was obvious yesterday and not unexpected. Our drainage swales were flowing with zeal in stark contrast to just 24 hours prior.
Where it doesn’t flow away, it puddles up and can even hide just below a cover of old snow.
I thought stepping in deep snow-cone snow was risky, but it’s nothing compared to plopping a boot into a puddle of melted snow that rises over the top.
Green growth and leaf buds can’t be far behind!
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No Foolin’
I think we just might have gotten past the messiest part of the spring snow melt season yesterday. At least, that’s what the optimist in me is hanging his hopes on. It is hard to shake the memory of that 18 inch snowfall that buried us last May and significantly prolonged the drying out of our property last year, but something is telling me that won’t be our plight this year.
A remarkable amount of ground made its first appearance of 2014 during yesterday’s dose of warmth and wind. We were blessed with two separate periods of relatively light rainfall which is always a big help in melting the snow pack. I was able to make my way along a good portion of our southern property line and was thrilled to find that the new culvert we installed, along with the preliminary improvements to open up the drainage ditch, are functioning brilliantly. It is easy to see where we should continue, and I have renewed inspiration and confidence about what I want to do next to maximize the benefits possible in helping our land drain in a controlled way.
The channel I made on Sunday is still in place at the edge of the southern ditch. Looking back up toward where all the water is coming from, you can see how much it wants to spread out now. One of my goals this summer will be to dig out a more defined creek bed across this field with our tractor, and then soften the edges to a gentle slope, and seed it with grass. Most of the year it will simply be a dry depression, only filling with water during the snow melt or a significant rainfall.
Our water-loving dog, Delilah, is mad about helping me get the water to flow. She runs up and down the channels and tries to bite the water wherever it ripples or gurgles. I like it when she helps down here because the ground isn’t muddy and the water is clean, so she just gets wet. The running back and forth does wonders to burn off her otherwise endless energy. When we came in, I toweled her off as she lay on her back, and then she curled up with the towel and took a nap.
On my way back to the house, I plodded past the labyrinth and discovered an interesting phenomenon. The melting snow is creating an inverse image as compared to the way it looked when I was shoveling the route in winter. It takes longer for packed snow to melt, so the path that I repeatedly trekked with snow shoes is now taller than the border areas of stones. They appear as depressions between the paths now.
It’s true. I’m not just saying that because it’s April 1st. Seriously.
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Harsh Realities
In the last few days, we have come across a surprising number of animal parts that Delilah has collected from her explorations around our property. I think the melting snow might be revealing some carcasses that were preserved beneath all the white stuff this winter. At least, we hope that explains the dramatic increase in our exposure to the harsh reality of animal mortality lately, as opposed to the possibility that she has become that proficient of a predator.
Cyndie buys a lot of chew toys for our dog, but none of those come close to thrilling Delilah as much as something biological. Oftentimes, we are unable to recognize what she has in her mouth, but it is easy to tell from her behavior and body language that it isn’t one of the toys.
If we are lucky, we are unable to identify what it is. Somehow that is easier to stomach. I felt a bit nauseous yesterday as she chomped away on the very obvious body of a mouse. Then she comes inside and tries to lick our faces with her bad breath while we towel her dry and remove her blaze-orange vest.
Earlier that morning, Cyndie stepped in the house from feeding the horses and said, “I have a blog post title for you…”
“Headless Rabbit.”
I decided not. Cyndie described the unlikely scenario of lifting one of the horse’s feed pans which had been flipped upside down in the paddock, and discovering the carcass of a headless rabbit beneath. We can’t imagine how it ended up there. Maybe one of the horses came across the body and purposely covered it out of respect.
We also have a pile of feathers that Delilah has been working on, which I’m guessing came from one of the many wild turkeys roaming our land. In addition to the deer leg that has been a recent prize, she also is quite fond of chewing on a fair-sized piece of hide; both hoof and hide being something that a pack of coyotes might leave behind.
Another harsh reality we are facing this weekend, with temperatures soaring well-above freezing, is the mud and manure mess we have been anticipating in the paddocks. When the ground here is saturated, it becomes so soft that you sink to the point of losing a boot in many places. That means we don’t dare try driving the tractor into the paddocks now to remove the abundant accumulation of manure. It would sink past the axles. This will be a nasty problem to endure while waiting for the soil to dry out.
It is our first spring with the horses, and this worst-case scenario has us biding our time until we can engineer a remedy, which will likely be a combination of altering landscape to improve drainage, and adding some sand/gravel to a few key areas to improve their footing.
All this “reality” certainly does help to accentuate how far we have come in our move from the refined environment of our previous life in the suburbs.
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Merciful Melt
Thus far, the spring thaw has been happening at a merciful pace. We get a day or two of melting, and then swing back to a solid freeze. Each day that it gets above freezing, larger percentages of snow cover are being peeled back.
The latest hazard to emerge is due to the fact that the routes most commonly tread around here are some of the first spots where the bare ground is being revealed and thawing. That means the places we want to walk are getting sloppy and muddy on the warm days. Suddenly I find myself trying to walk on the snow that remains, in an ironic reverse of the usual logic. It is a blessing when everything re-freezes and we can walk across the hard ground without the slurpy mess for a day.
Sadly, Delilah’s kennel out back is not ideally situated for optimal drainage. There is some work to be done there this summer to create a better grade at the spot we selected, so the water won’t pool as readily. There is a raised wooden house in there for her, but she seems to prefer the stuffed pad that is out on the ground, and it ends up soaking in the edge of a pool of melt water.
Yesterday we were blessed with a gloomy, cloudy day when the temperature climbed above freezing, so the melting was definitely happening, but at a measured pace. I was again intrigued to find how well my simple shoveled gullies in the gravel driveway by the barn and hay shed work to channel water where we really want it to go.
Just like priming a pump, when a puddle is given an outlet for drainage, it seems to all of a sudden pull water from above, and then flow begets flow. Soon the channels come alive with running water and the areas above visibly begin to dry out.
It works for the period of time when we are enjoying this eased pace of melting. In the days to come when the sun comes out in full and the temps really soar, I suspect my little channels will prove to be rather under-sized for the job. Long term, I am envisioning some larger-scale grade landscaping in a few areas to create the same effect for the full capacity of our entire acreage.
That’s my dream, in theory, anyway.
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Relative Something 