Farming in the shade

It's been a fairly wet May, and some of the fields with heavier soil have been wet. The other day The Farmer decided to add some grass waterways in two soggy spots. In the photo below, you can see the sogginess near the back of the photo. He worked with the bobcat to carve a very shallow ditch leading to another field ditch, which leads to a county drain, which leads to a creek, which leads to a river, which leads to a lake, which leads to Lake Michigan. See why it's important what we do in our fields? Anyway, he added the soil from the ditch-making to the low, soggy spot. Here's the same grass waterway/ditch, but facing the other direction. We will seed this grass waterway/ditch with grass seed. The point of having a low, slow waterway like this is that the water will slowly drain off the field here, and the grass will catch much of the soil that would normally erode into the ditches. Just doing our part to keep the earth and the water separated.

The ditches are becoming clogged with willows. Every couple of years we really need to work on cutting them back. The Farmer has a saw blade that fits on the end of his weed whacker that helps with brush whacking. Perfect for the willow invasion.  Here's a  photo of the before: And an idea of what things look like after: There are piles of dead willows along many of the ditch banks on the farm. Our township has a summer burning ban, so these willows will be collected for a fall brush fire after the ban is lifted.

For many years we've utilized filter strips along our major ditches. Our filter strips are about 24 feet wide, and planted with grass. Filter strips provide wildlife habitat, help to slow down erosion and keep nutrients from washing away during rainstorms.  Here is one of our filter strips after a rainy spring and a particularly heavy rainstorm.  Corn stalks were caught in the filter strip, preventing them from clogging up the ditches. The corn stalks moved across the filter strip at least 13 feet. Smaller debris erodes even more and is trapped in the filter strip to a lesser degree. All of the trapped matter would have otherwise ended up in the ditches, drains, streams, and rivers. Eventually, some of it would have made its way out to the big lake, polluting all the way. When this happens, ditches and drains need to be cleaned out more often. And harbors in the big lake may also need to be dredged more often. All of this costs money, and can be prevented to...

Sigh... As I posted earlier, we had 2" of heavy rain on top of record-high temperatures on Saturday. This melted all the snow (over 50" in December) and proceeded to flood areas that shouldn't flood, yet again. This is the THIRD 100 year flood in calendar year 2008, and I am quite sure I'm not the only one who is tired of it.  Many people had flooded basements, again. People who don't live anywhere near rivers even had flooded basements--the water simply could not percolate through the semi-frozen ground fast enough. Fields were flooded, again. Fortunately, not much is actively growing at this time. Doesn't this look like a lake? It's a hayfield.  To add insult to injury, a wind storm overnight Saturday left many without power, exacerbating the problem by preventing basement sump pumps (standard equipment in former-swampland western Michigan) from running. All this on top of extremely difficult economic circumstances, and we wonder, "How long?" a...

Last Saturday was a fabulous example of a perfect summer day. We don't get a lot of perfect summer days in October. Here's what the kids decided to do with part of their day, after I kicked them (figuratively) outside... What is it with boys and ditches?

Back in June, the month of the Great Flood , we were dreaming of this moment: You see, 6" of rain in theory should not be so devastating. But if the ditch is due to be cleaned, and the water can't drain away, it can be a mess. Check out this photo to see what happens when the main drain is clogged:  Our fields sat under water for days. We lost and had to replant about half of our corn and soybean crops. It's not a good crop  year this year, at all. But finally, the ditch is being cleaned out! Oh happy day! Small things amuse small minds, they say... I stood on our driveway bridge and looked down the road at what had not yet been done: And then took a shot up the road at what was already dug out: Maybe next spring our basement won't flood! Here's hoping...