I’m Pretty Sure God Had Fun

As you know Dear Reader from a previous post, I gave up on using the five-gallons-in-three-seconds water pump.

Instead, Bet and I dug the trans-continental ditch from Midway Pond to West Pond, in order to help drain Market Garden into Hedge Pond.  

From Here to There, Uh, Where?

To get a sense of the lay of the land at Vicktory Farm & Gardens, and why the trans-continental ditch, let’s start by facing north towards the highway, State Route 702. 

Turn a bit to your left, way over to the west fence line and running from the highway culvert to the Farm Canal is West Pond.  It’s the largest and oldest of the three actual ponds in this section of the Farm and the least seasonal.  It is bordered on its east shore by a large ridge (the continent) except where it drains into the canal. 

Step back aways to take in more of the pasture and east of the ridge the bulk of the area sits on a bit of a plateau, but is chalk full of dips and swales that hold large rainfall puddles. We’ll be working on ironin’ out the swales a little at a time in small strips so as not to take away all of the horses grazing, We’ll get to that job just as soon as some other projects are a little farther under the belt.

Up front along the highway is a bit of a different story. Dips and swales all right, but that and a bit more. There are two ponds developing in the seventy foot wide stretch that runs along the north perimeter.  This strip that is becoming Highway Hedgerow will encompass the two ponds, the culvert and a bit of the head of West Pond, the solid line on the map shows and existing fence, the dotted line is more fence to come. 

Things Change, Change With ‘Em (when appropriate) 

Here, this will give you a better idea, I don’t like to use other photos on the blog but… . As you can see from the Google Earth aerial shot, Midway Pond is midway between Hedgerow Pond and West Pond, it’s the one that I have been pumping the overflow from Market Garden into.  I would have to then pump water from Midway Pond into West Pond so that the water would not come back into the Market Garden via the Hedgerow Pond.

Two years ago when the aerial was taken the  Midway Pond didn’t exist and Hedgerow Pond was just a low spot in the then Pumpkin Patch.  The white strips are floating row covers and we left it off the muddy spot so that it would dry in the sun faster.  When we first put in the pumpkin patch over five year ago the low spot was hardly noticeable and not a deterrent to tilling and working the soil.  But things change.  Like other landowners cutting large stands of trees and other farmers divvying up their pasture lands for housing developments.  But it isn’t much different than the way the whole pond system on the original hundred acre farm came into being. 

Back in the fifties what is now large ponds that sit in the middle of the original homestead were fields with a small stream running through that eventually built up and converged with other seasonal streams to make Horn Creek.  Then the beaver family moved into the neighborhood.  The rest, as we all love to say, is history.  They quickly turned seasonal streams into large ponds that rise and fall but for the most part stay year ’round.

Now other beavers, the two legged type, have moved into the area turning what was just seasonally damp pasture land into a saturated mushy mess.

So the tidying and dealing with the mushy mess is underway, to keep most of the land arable and what can no longer be arable can become a lovely habitat for critters and birds and a bit of a buffer from the highway. 

Bet and I were happy to dig the trans-continental ditch to join Midway Pond with West Pond.  We need the practice for when we continue to dig Hedge Pond into a right proper pond to hold the new run off we’ve been experiencing. We don’t really mind all the water, just wish it weren’t hangin’ on the tater beds this late into spring.  We’ll like it much better when it is in nicely constructed, carefully designed by hand, holding ponds.

The Pump Will Come Out Again

It has rained buckets since we dug the TC canal, even though it has let up a little at times and especially yesterday and today,

the water around the taters and onions is still hangin’ in there. I may get out the pump and take some more water out of the Market Garden, I was hopin’ for a bigger break in the torrents of rain so that the ground, and the sun perhaps, could take care of the water lingering in the garden.  At least I don’t have to pump the same water twice any more. If I choose to move it from near the potato beds to Midway Pond it won’t double back on me, but instead flow out the trans-continental ditch instead.

Even if I choose to wait the rain out and take my chances and not burn up any more dollars in petrol, I’ll still need the pump this summer because water doesn’t run up hill.  Even though the Market Garden is a low spot, only parts are and the whole of it is a high low spot.  That is why I was able to drain it and why I will in fact need the water pump this summer, its quite a challenge to get water to run uphill all on it’s own. (I’ve been informed by the finance department that it might be a cold day down below – or at least a really really wet day here – before I can use up any more fuel for a few tates).

Well Dear Reader you sure got an earful – eyeful? – today.  Hope you could follow my tour of the northern end of Vicktory Farm & Gardens, next time or at least soon, we’ll have to chat about some of the other things happenin’ at Vicktory Farm & Gardens lets hope it has nothin more to do with water, for a while at least.  But know that we are well cared for…oh wait, that reminds me, my title.  What the heck did that title have to do with any of the gibber about rain, run off, pond and ditch diggin’?

God Musta Had Fun

While Bet and I were out diggin’ the ditch it reminded me so much of my years doin’ stuff like that with my brother Christopher, Uncle Chrissy to our girls.  The two of us did a lot of building and diggin’ in our lives, down at the ocean, up at the river in Morton and under the Rhododendrons in the front yard where we were often makin’ rivers for the Army guys to cross. 

And all that remembering of our little creations and all the ones I still do now, less for shear joy and more for the joy of good work and a job well done as unto my Lord, it all got me to thinkin’ ’bout God.  And how God didn’t just snap his fingers or breathe His hot breath and presto the earth was all there then just like it is now.  I suppose He coulda if He wanted to.  Coulda skipped a few creation days and thought it into existence in less than an instant, He has no limitations.  He can do anything He desires.  Instead of Instant World-in-a-Cup, He chose to take some time, not the time it woulda taken even the most clever of us all workin’ together, but still, He took time with His creation.  And I know why. 

It is amazing to create and watch things change and flow and move and grow because you touched it.  I believe God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the one True God, enjoyed creating and does to this very day, which of course is a whole ‘nuther rabbit trail because He’s outside of time and today to Him is a nano second or a thousand years, you pick, He’s beyond the confines of time.  He gave us days as a gift to use wisely.  Which is another story for another day.

Right now I’m just likin’ the enjoyment of thinkin’ of God’s enjoyment in creating, and headin’ out to ride horses on a sunny day finally!  YeeHaw!  – Oh and a blessed Palm Sunday to all of you.