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  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Running water that cleanses the soul
  • Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2009 10:30:26 -0700


On Jan 7, 2009, at 9:57 AM, EarthNSky wrote:

I have full rainwater tanks, . . . .

Sounds like you have things well in hand. I had flipped back to your well issues and then your recent drought. Might have known you were on top of the situation.

The monster beds themselves
contain no soil, just organic matter and compost. A 3 foot tall mass of
waste hay, grass, leaves, sticks and manure holds a lot of water.

Almost ready for filling at Heartwood is a new ferrocement raised bed four feet wide and fifteen feet long. Vase shaped. Waist high for Chris on the uphill side and for me on the downhill side. My plan calls for, from the bottom: rocks, small rocks/gravel, good-sized rotten oak branches, small rotten oak branches, mower catches of grass and leaves for a filter, then growing soil on top.

. . . Just above the little spring I
photographed is a dug out area that I call the woodland pond. Elevation
is about 100 above the garden and about 200 feet away from it. It fills
up with spring water that runs off the ridge. The guy who originally
dug it told me he dug it deeper than his tractor and that he almost did
not get his tractor out, but over time, it has filled in and even when
full now the water is only about 4 feet deep. The pond area doesn't
hold water any longer. This is one of those things, Gene, I would do if
I had Magnolia. I would redig that pond, line it, and wait for it to
fill. I could raise catfish up there. It is t-bone shaped and about
fifty feet long by an average of 30 feet wide. It could be a bit bigger
and definitely deeper.

Sounds perfect for gravity irrigation. Digging it out by hand would get you in primo shape. There are organic sealing methods. I have read of a Russian process for creating a waterproof pond bottom; I think they call the stuff glee. It's layers of organic matter that rot but short of dissipation due to lack of oxygen. Old timers did much the same thing by putting hay or straw in the pond bottom, then feeding pigs there. The little hooves pack the fibers and poop into a water resistant bottom.

In the deep area near the culvert, water will remain for almost a week
after the creek stops running. I think the underground stream is very
close to the surface there. It was in that area that I found a huge
crayfish once. It is odd to find such a thing in a creek that has been
dry for over a year, UNLESS it came up from underground. Rock Creek,
AKA Hidden Creek is 1000 feet distant on the other side of the road. My
creek runs into it, but at the time I found the crawdad, even Rock Creek
had been dry for a year...so where the heck did that little fellow come
from if not an underground stream?

Sounds like you have what in the Ozarks is called a losing stream. There is flow but in dry times only at the area just above bedrock, in heavy rain times the water level rises to and above ground surface.




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