Late February, 2022, there was a weather event like none we have ever witnessed.
Our little farm received over 26″ of rain in under 3 days.
Jody and Kallis were isolated on the farm for 5 days as the main bridge to the highway was closed.
Our animals poor were saturated & disorientated. We had to move them to more secure paddacks.
The extreme weather event caused mass erosion in the spillway of our dam, filled the dams with sand and debris, washed out two boundary fences and created a muddy mess for our animals.
With only centimetres of land preventing complete failure of our dam I knew I had to act fast. One more rain event would surely be enough to bust the wall.
After spending the best part of a day contemplating what I needed to do and liaising with friends I decided we needed to create emergency spillways at the top wall of our dam.
This allowed us to sandbag the eroded spillway to stop the water from continuing to overflow at that location.
It proved very difficult to stop the flow with one emergency spillway so we decided to make two emergency spillways.
With a bit of backing soil to help seal the sandbags and the two emergency spillways, we finally managed to stop the flow of water.
Then we had to create a break from the spillway dam by creating a mud weir break. This was done by hand. It was too boggy and wet to move any machinery around.
Now the situation was under control I was able to reflect the importance of this tree. Its root system is what potentially save the dam from failure.
We organised 2 truck loads of rocks to fill in the washout. This hopefully will prevent future washouts.
We also boxed up a concrete weir crossing which will assist with preventing washout in the future.
The paddocks were too wet to get the trucks unloaded any near the dam. So we got the big machinery in.
The excavator done an amazing job of filling in our hole with the rocks.
It sure did make a mess of our beautiful grass though and sank a long way in he soggy mud.
It was not long before our big hole was filled and relief was starting to settle in.
Then we compacted some top soil over the rocks and no-one would ever know we had a big there ever again.
We even decided to sneal a few more inches of water into the spillway for that little extra capacity.
Some Pepino bushes were planted in the area that Trevor rotary hoed so I am hoping that they soon start their climbing on their trellis. The other Pepino bush in my orchard has fruit on it and they are looking outstanding.
I have also cultivated some of my Turmeric and what I am not going to use for myself presently I have planted beside the Bananas.
Trevor extended the banana garden by quite a bit and replanted the young suckers into this space. The Banana Trees are growing exceptionally well and we now have at least half a dozen bunches on the trees at the moment.
My Tagasaste bushes are steaming ahead with what looks like a success this time and I have around another 120 seedlings up and ready to plant out.
The Halloween pumpkins are now flowering so hopefully they will soon start growing up and over the vine structure. I have also planted Butternut Pumpkin, Cucumber, Rock melon and Water Melon on the vine structures as well.
The last of our Mushrooms have now been eaten so now we just have to keep the spores dark and wet and wait till harvest time again.
Hello everyone its been awhile since my last blog, in fact its been over a month but I have been quite busy with a lot of Winter work that needs to be finalised before Spring is upon us. We have only received around 18 mls of rain this month but that was enough to top up our tanks and dam and also bring on a bit of winter green pick in the paddocks. Ajax has been going along well with his halter training and we have also been leading Bert around to keep Ajax company during the training.
This week I converted a child’s climbing frame, that we collected, into a strawberry bed. I have the top
layer done and just have the bottom layer to finish. Trevor also started on my vine climbing structure made from the outdoor swing sets and trampolines that we have been acquiring for free. Ajax had his first taste of handling when we caught and haltered him. I don’t think he was that impressed lol. We also had the great fortune of 44 mls of rain on the weekend which filled our tanks and dam. This rain was such a blessing as our tanks were close to being empty and the dam was very low as well. With the Winter Solstice now upon as I look forward to the longer days coming.
Its been as windy as this week which has sliced all our Banana Tree leaves to shreds and even though it makes no difference to the plants it just makes them look a bit battered. We named our little bull calf Ajax and next week I hope to start halter training him. I have been collecting plenty of cow and horse manure over the last few weeks and have been filling up our Hugelkultur Bed getting it ready for spring planting. I have also used plenty of manure and sugar cane mulch in my orchard garden as the soil is looking a bit sad in there at the moment. The Galloway Field Day was on the weekend at a property at Mt Tamborine and we had a great time meeting new people and learning more about the cattle. Trevor also put gates on the shed so we can store the hay or accommodate the cattle when needed. Still no rain but hopefully next week will be kind to us and bring the rain clouds.