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I don't give a dam
Yesterday, Conrad and I tackled the main beaver dam.
I hadn't been planning to work outside at all yesterday -- it was cold and mizzly in the morning, but it proceeded to clear up, and by early afternoon the sun was shining pretty steadily. It was still cool, though, for which I was grateful as I detached a portion of the paddock fence to use in the beaver cheater; the no-see-ums were not around.
I drove down to get the drain pipe, passing a Penske moving van where it appeared to have backed across the road and into the ditch on the stretch just above the Red Barn. When I came back up an hour later, they were hooking up a tractor to the cab, and it looked like they would be a while... I turned around and took Rock Creek instead.
Bless Skyberg's, they sold me a 100-foot roll of solid drain pipe, heaved it onto the roof of my car, and never once assumed that I needed assistance roping it down. It's refreshing not to be patronized.
When I got back, we left the pipe where it was in the driveway, and took hook, hoe, and saws out to drain the dam. Conrad sawed a bunch of willow branches to give us access to the old felled poplar: it was indeed the basis for the original dam, an 18-24" tree trunk neatly laid over the original streambed. We couldn't remove that, so we worked next to it, pulling out sticks, mud, and grass roots to make a spillway. Then we breached the dam, and continued to clear the spillway as the water eroded the supports around some saplings there. Finally, as the sun lowered in the west, we dredged a channel along the face of the dam, allowing the deeper water upstream to drain more easily.
We managed to drop the water level by about a foot, turning a 25-foot-wide pond into a rushing stream maybe 2 feet across. The submerged tree trunk is now more than half exposed. While we were dredging, I saw a small creature climb onto the tree trunk, and went over to pick it up and show it to Conrad: it was a tiny crayfish, just over an inch long. It waved its claws furiously at us.
There were no repairs overnight, as I found when I took the opportunity to explore a bit this morning. We still haven't used the drainpipe, but I'll keep it around -- it may be repaired in a few days, or more beavers might show up in the spring, or in a couple of years. If nothing else, I can use it to create a streamlet across the near pastures to serve as a water source when I start rotation grazing, and that would let me eliminate the corner of the pasture that drops down a steep bank to the west creek. Fifty feet of buried pipe would probably create a nice trickle from corner to corner of that pasture, with sunk troughs to catch the water at various points.
The creek at the dam has now cut itself a proper channel where we dredged it. There's still a drop of about four feet from top to bottom of the spillway, and a sharp S-bend along the face of the dam. I went out this morning to assess the streambed, and found it was settling into what was obviously a well-worn channel, which I assume was the original course. I was going to say that it looks like the break we made was closer to the pond than it ran originally, but then I remembered that the pond outflow is on the current bank (and covered by the beaver dam), so I guess it did curve around that direction... The S-bends slow the water down before the elevation change, creating a somewhat shallower bed rather than a gully, so it would be good to keep that as much as possible. The water level is still low enough there to keep almost the whole pasture dry.
Everything is draining with remarkable speed, and this morning I was able to wade through the marsh sedges down to the cross-fence, nearly parallel to the dam (it was still a bit too soft there). The ground should firm up in the coming week, as we're supposed to have warm dry weather. Hopefully, if the dam stays open, the pastures will thoroughly drain this spring, and the leachfield won't flood either... and perhaps the grasses can advance a little against the sedges.
It will also discourage the raccoons, which can be pests around poultry.
I should make a note to unearth the pond outflow. The level rose noticeably when we got about two inches last week, and I'd rather it didn't drain overland during the winter.
It's a beautiful day today, sunny and cool with fluffy clouds. I'll fix some lunch, then go tackle the Annex.
I hadn't been planning to work outside at all yesterday -- it was cold and mizzly in the morning, but it proceeded to clear up, and by early afternoon the sun was shining pretty steadily. It was still cool, though, for which I was grateful as I detached a portion of the paddock fence to use in the beaver cheater; the no-see-ums were not around.
I drove down to get the drain pipe, passing a Penske moving van where it appeared to have backed across the road and into the ditch on the stretch just above the Red Barn. When I came back up an hour later, they were hooking up a tractor to the cab, and it looked like they would be a while... I turned around and took Rock Creek instead.
Bless Skyberg's, they sold me a 100-foot roll of solid drain pipe, heaved it onto the roof of my car, and never once assumed that I needed assistance roping it down. It's refreshing not to be patronized.
When I got back, we left the pipe where it was in the driveway, and took hook, hoe, and saws out to drain the dam. Conrad sawed a bunch of willow branches to give us access to the old felled poplar: it was indeed the basis for the original dam, an 18-24" tree trunk neatly laid over the original streambed. We couldn't remove that, so we worked next to it, pulling out sticks, mud, and grass roots to make a spillway. Then we breached the dam, and continued to clear the spillway as the water eroded the supports around some saplings there. Finally, as the sun lowered in the west, we dredged a channel along the face of the dam, allowing the deeper water upstream to drain more easily.
We managed to drop the water level by about a foot, turning a 25-foot-wide pond into a rushing stream maybe 2 feet across. The submerged tree trunk is now more than half exposed. While we were dredging, I saw a small creature climb onto the tree trunk, and went over to pick it up and show it to Conrad: it was a tiny crayfish, just over an inch long. It waved its claws furiously at us.
There were no repairs overnight, as I found when I took the opportunity to explore a bit this morning. We still haven't used the drainpipe, but I'll keep it around -- it may be repaired in a few days, or more beavers might show up in the spring, or in a couple of years. If nothing else, I can use it to create a streamlet across the near pastures to serve as a water source when I start rotation grazing, and that would let me eliminate the corner of the pasture that drops down a steep bank to the west creek. Fifty feet of buried pipe would probably create a nice trickle from corner to corner of that pasture, with sunk troughs to catch the water at various points.
The creek at the dam has now cut itself a proper channel where we dredged it. There's still a drop of about four feet from top to bottom of the spillway, and a sharp S-bend along the face of the dam. I went out this morning to assess the streambed, and found it was settling into what was obviously a well-worn channel, which I assume was the original course. I was going to say that it looks like the break we made was closer to the pond than it ran originally, but then I remembered that the pond outflow is on the current bank (and covered by the beaver dam), so I guess it did curve around that direction... The S-bends slow the water down before the elevation change, creating a somewhat shallower bed rather than a gully, so it would be good to keep that as much as possible. The water level is still low enough there to keep almost the whole pasture dry.
Everything is draining with remarkable speed, and this morning I was able to wade through the marsh sedges down to the cross-fence, nearly parallel to the dam (it was still a bit too soft there). The ground should firm up in the coming week, as we're supposed to have warm dry weather. Hopefully, if the dam stays open, the pastures will thoroughly drain this spring, and the leachfield won't flood either... and perhaps the grasses can advance a little against the sedges.
It will also discourage the raccoons, which can be pests around poultry.
I should make a note to unearth the pond outflow. The level rose noticeably when we got about two inches last week, and I'd rather it didn't drain overland during the winter.
It's a beautiful day today, sunny and cool with fluffy clouds. I'll fix some lunch, then go tackle the Annex.