Last night, it rained.  Again.  For nearly two hours.  And we are flooded out once more.

Not only our little drainage creek, but a lot of the yard, paddocks and pens are just soppy, yucky muck.  The poor animals are all spattered and dirty with mud.   The pastures are a little better, but still, damp, weedy and a mess.

We have had nothing but rain nearly every other day for the last two months.   Enough!   Uncle!  We are done…

Farmers around us are just having a heck of a time.  The flooding just kills large areas of crops and stunts others.   Or things like hay and wheat are rotting and getting seedy because you need a couple good dry days to be able to process that material.  And we ain’t got it.

And even if the crops are doing okay, so many fields are just so mucky and wet that they can’t get their machinery in there to harvest, tend or till.  I have seen several big tractors mired up over their axles, stuck.  It’s not good for us in the Ohio Valley region.

Of course… this used to be called the Great Black Swamp.

Imagine that.

I think the area wants to revert back.

It’s possible, I suppose.  Looking out at our little homestead, I can see how it really would rather be marshy and wet.  We, the people, have been busy draining and ditching and piling up more stuff, just trying to reclaim this little paradise for our own needs.

Well, normally, it’s not this bad.  Honest.  We’ve had a little flooding issues now and then, primarily before our neighbor went and installed some serious drainage pipe in and around our property and his fields.  He was routinely loosing 5 to 10 acres of crops that surround our little area to standing water and mud and decided to do something about it.  And until this spring, it was working great!   We only had issues when it rained so much in a short period of time and then it would drain up pretty quickly, usually within 24 hours.

But now, nope.  It’s just a mess.

They say we should start to dry out.  See more windy and hot sunny days soon.  After all, we are just about into August.  And August around here usually means no more mowing your brown and dying lawn.  We have mowed so much this year!  Oh my gosh.   It’s like growing right behind the mower as fast as you mow.  I hate to say, but we’ve given up on a few areas.  We just can’t keep up with it, not with a simple push mower.

Well, enough complaining.  I know it doesn’t do anything but give a person a little breather and let out a little frustration.  We three womenfolk are definitely feeling a little frustrated from this all.  Even the inside of the house is feeling damp and just heavy, dirty and hard to keep clean.   And bugs.  Ugh.  Bugs are just so out of control.  We fight it, day and night.  It’s just hard on a soul.

I totally understand, now, those pioneer women that just went insane.  I can’t even imagine trying to keep a sod floor cabin clean.  Or dealing with day in and day out monotony of rain, rain, rain and muck and mud.  Dying crops, filthy animals.  Worn out family members.

Well, it’s just a waiting game now, however.  There is just not a whole lot we can do at the moment, not easily.   Labor and budget issues make it hard to just “do” this and that.  So, we are doing the best we can, and just keep moving everyone to high ground and praying for a little relief from the rain.

I do know what we would do, and will do as we can.  Been rattling around a list in my head.

1.)  Get about 10 truck loads of free mulch from the next village over.  We would truck this in and apply to our major walkways and animal pen and paddocks.  Just make it as thick and high as we can, so that we can cut back on some of the muddy pathways.

2.)  Get about a dozen large concrete stepping stones, the 2 foot square ones and lay in the wettest areas…  and then surround with many bags of large pea gravel and small stones.

3.)  All garden beds must be raised.  We tried to make some beds on the ground this year and suffice to say, the crops are all either dead or just a mess. Our raise boxes are doing fairly well.  It would be good to add a lot of mulch in there on the walkways and between the boxes.  To cut down on weed growth and to build up the area above the flooding points.

4.) Acquire a ton or more of sawdust for barn bedding.  And to help the worse paddock areas.

5.)  Dredge out our creek ditch and create two small holding pond areas for really wet times at either end of the property.  Of course, doing this will require the borrowing or renting of a small ditch digger.  There’s just no real way Maggie and I could do all this on our own with hand shovels.

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Those things would help a great deal.  And we are working towards them.  Just going to be slow going.  We hope to start with the free mulch…  perhaps borrow a bigger truck than our old van.  Just start making a bunch of trips.  Anything to start diverting some of the dirt and mud from getting worse than it is.  And I have a lead on some sawdust from a local mill, it might be reasonable, just have to call around and check on Craigslist.

The garden, well, it’s kind of a wash at this point.  We have half of it doing pretty well and will help us out for sure.  The rest, well, it’s going to have to be changed and made ready for next year.  We won’t give up, it’s just going to take a little more effort to make it all work nicely.

Sometimes, just having a plan and a little time to vent makes the world of difference.

And of course, a couple hot, sunny, DRY days!  Please?  Thanks!

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