Though it was a lot of effort, in fact the culmination of a lot of effort over a lot of years, the digging of the pond and clearing of the trees on the hillside between the pond and the cabin have turned out to be a worthwhile investment indeed.
Sitting at the kitchen table looking over the pond and meadow and mountains beyond is a source of constant pleasure.
February saw some good snow which stuck for a few days.
I managed to get some fires burned to clear the piles of brush down in the meadow by the new pond, which was surprisingly full.
The next morning, the snow had pretty much melted off, and in the early dawn as the cold air came sweeping down the mountainside, a mist rose while the neighborhood turkeys were gabbling on the driveway.
Later that morning the turkeys meandered down to the pond to peck around for food.
Towards noon, I was outside digging out the swale which the top of the driveway drains into when it rains heavily, to absorb the water and avoid gouging out a gully down the side of the hill.
Movement down in the meadow across the fence caught my eye.
If I were the turkeys, I’d consider keeping an eye out for the local carnivores.
So we have this beautiful, mostly open meadow towards the eastern edge of our property which, judging by the number of stumps, used to be a mixed grove of conifers and oaks, all burned down by the big fire which swept through about 40 years ago.
Something about the meadow caught my attention. First, I noticed a few oaks at the edges of the meadow which were pretty mature, and probably started growing soon after the fire, but were dwarfish, standing only 4 or 5 feet high. Then I noticed a couple of large, bunchy cluster of willow like bushes in the middle of the meadow.
It became clear the aquifer came close to ground level in the meadow, which was drowning the dwarf oaks and the reason why the meadow stayed green pretty far into the summer.
Over the course of a few years, I dug some test holes and finally settled on the most likely spot and starting with a post hole digger, and then a shovel, dug a bowl shaped hole a few feet down. I didn’t hit water, but watched the hole off and on for another year, and observed the clay at the bottom of the hole stayed moist into summer.
The next step was to acquire a hand well auger and a couple sections of extension pipe. The auger is pretty much what it sounds like, you turn the handle and it acts like a big drill in the dirt and you pull out the dirt one auger load at a time.
I was able to get down another 5 or 6 feet, for a total combined depth of 8 or 9 feet and though the material pulled up by the auger was moist, still no water.
I waited for winter to observe the test hole and see what would happen when the water table raised from the rain and snow.
Bingo.
So I started digging out a pond. After digging up a couple dozen wheelbarrows of clay and dirt, it became clear that I would not in fact be digging out this pond.
The pond became part of a larger project which included first hiring a crew with a masticator to clear the old road leading to the meadow, and then arranging for an excavator to come out and properly dig the pond.
Nathan from MTC Construction showed up with the excavator, and after leading him to the meadow and discussing the project, he started in.
After a few hours, he’d scraped out the general bowl shape in the general diameter and then, still not hitting water, tenaciously kept digging down until… water!
By the end of the day, he’d pulled out an enormous amount of clay and dirt and it became clear that the project couldn’t move forward until we could get the bobcat with a large bucket out to work with the excavator to move and spread all the material.
Finally, the day came and the crew arrived and after several hours the job was complete!
The bowl of the pond is about 40 feet in diameter and slopes down 7 or 8 feet to the waterline which in the photo has risen close to about where the top of the aquifer is. The hole goes down another 5 or 6 below the waterline in more of a steep cylindrical fashion.
One of the faces of the bowl is very moist and has formed a seep field which is causing the pond level to rise very slowly.
The intention is to provide a year round source of water for the local wildlife.
Some of the material dug from the pond was moved over and spread in a level circle around a nearby large shade oak, and I’m hoping to build a nice little visitor’s cabin under its canopy.
This fall, I’ll be out with many many pounds of clover and wildflower seeds to plant on the berm surrounding the pond and the face of the interior bowl.
Next spring will be glorious and magnificent.
I’ve been spending more time in our meadow, most recently clearing out the manzanita from a pretty copse of oak and pine. There’s now a couple of benches under the trees, which now that they’ve been cleared of brush and cleaned up, provide creamy delicious shade, so important in the summer.
The wheelbarrow in the picture is at the edge of what will, in a couple months, be a round hole in the ground, shaped like a bowl and about 8 feet deep at the center. We dug a test hole out there years ago because we knew water was pretty close to the surface at that part of the meadow. Last summer I got serious and got a hand auger and hit water at about 6 feet below grade.
The wildflowers are starting to come out, these yellow flowers bloom in late spring and last through much of summer.
So the day after the last rains of May began wonderfully.
And ended perfectly.
A series of atmospheric rivers have been drenching the area for weeks. A couple days ago, it had warmed up and rained enough to melt off the snow. Yay, I thought, I’ll finally be able to get some outdoor work done.
Nope. It’s been constant rain, though I did manage to get out to do a survey of the creek at the bottom of the hill.
Okay, more water than I’ve ever seen and lots of dropped logs.
Dead trees couldn’t take the combination of the unusually heavy snow load combined with the wind.
A couple of dead cottonwoods to add to the mess.
All told it looked like about 30 downed trees from the last few months of wind and snow, and maybe another hundred which are too thick and too close to the creek and need to be cleared out.
The plan is to bring in a crew later in the spring when it’s drier and have them drag out the dropped trees and cut down the others which need to be cleared and chip the whole bunch.
Always exciting at the cabin on a hill.
There were a couple inches of snow when I got here a few days ago.
My car couldn’t make it up the driveway. Too lazy to put on chains to get up the last couple hundred feet to the top, I expended a hundred times the energy making several trips lugging up groceries and supplies.
The power was out, which meant the pump was out, so no lights and no water.
No problem!
Have I mentioned that I love buckets? I do. I love ’em.
I also love my Goal Zero battery and solar charger.
Since the snow was covering all the cut trees and brush I wanted to burn, I spent a few hours cutting firewood. Dinner was a yummy grilled cheese sandwich prepared on the wood stove.
The electricity came back on in the night and more snow fell.
Sunrise, as is its wont, was spectacular.
A nice pot of black beans slow cooked through the day while I tromped around in the falling snow.
Oh well. Didn’t get a lot done today.
No complaints.
Cabin on a hill 