Nature's fury

While all the grass and trees are vibrantly green and succulent now because of all the rain we've had, we still have one little problem.

Okay, make that one HUGE problem.

Look to the right of the pond, see where the land just kind of disappears? It used to be part of the dam.

Here's a closer look. Yes, that is my pond seeping through the dirt. The pond is normally about four feet wider, but this nice big hole is draining it.

All that water rushing out of the pond also created a huge basin at the base of my brand new waterfall. The basin is about 20 feet wide at the top and probably close to eight feet deep. The widest point is where the highest point of the dam USED to be. Before it washed away.

Look, I'm IN the hole! It's over my head. I could practically LIVE down here, but I don't think the snakes and crawfish would like the company too much. And exposed roots aren't exactly my idea of art nouveau decor.

I don't need to be convinced that water is the MOST destructive force on the planet. This was caused by rain. Too much rain, too fast and too frequently. And what's even more frustrating...as we are losing one end of the pond, the other end is rapidly filling up with silt from the several hundred acres of farm fields that drain into it. I guess I could feel a bit better knowing that a lot of those fields now have pretty good sized ravines running through them. And I have all their dirt. HA! Take that!

We are still trying to figure out how to fix this issue, and we need to get it done pretty quickly. But not only is water destructive, fixing the destruction is going to leave an equally enormous hole in our checking account. *sigh*

The past couple of weeks, truncated

We are slowly drying out. After a solid week of rain things are starting to look a tad drier. At least the puddles are smaller and the mud is only knee-deep now, rather than waist deep.

Oh, and the window next to MY side of the bed is leaking. Fabulous. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. All. Night. Long. It's TORTURE. It has been leaking for a couple of months (and I asked Hubby to PLEASE fix it a couple of months ago, to no avail) and we now have reason to believe it's not just a faulty window frame....it's the roof. *sigh* If it's not one freaking thing, it's another. I wonder if a couple of cans of that expanding foam crap will fix it, at least temporarily until we can get someone out to take a look and find out what's really going on up there. Damn rain.

Between the failing pond dam, the leaking window/roof, the hip-deep mud and truck-sized potholes in our driveway you'd think it was monsoon season.

It was finally dry enough Sunday that I could get out into the yard and mow without sinking the tractor up to the axles in slop. Yay!

And, if it doesn't rain today, Unruly and I will be planting tulips, daylilies and wildflowers. Double yay! I've been itching to get out and do some digging around in the dirt. I don't think my day at work will go by fast enough and all I'll be thinking about all day long is riding and planting!

I am now the mother of a 16-year-old. Someone, please say plenty of prayers for us. Actually, Wild has made enormous maturity strides in the past few months. It's almost like she's becoming human again on most days. Yes, we still have the occasional moments of monster-like mood swings, but I can deal with the occasional attitude compared to the constant foul mood we were once forced to live with. It's pleasant and she is once again, mostly pleasant to live with. We still do have that issue with the two sisters fighting and egging each other on, but I really do think it's a sibling thing. What siblings actually get along with each other while they live together? Not many. I fought with my sister constantly, now, we are best friends. One day, I hope, Wild and Unruly will figure that out and be close.

I have pictures to post, but I'm at work and my camera is not. Such is life.

Ewww...ewww...ewww

Last night we took the cover off the pool.

What lurked beneath was quite, ummm...natural. Dark green water, an abundance of algae, some other stuff growing all happily and care-free in the non-chlorinated cement pond.

When we pulled that cover off and I saw the amount of work it will take to get that water back to a nice, sparkly blue, I sighed and wished for a beer. Or two. Or three. I looked at my darling husband and suggested we just buy a load of koi and introduce the ducks to their brand new home. Toss in a few water plants, maybe add some rocks so the koi have hiding spots, and instead of a swimming pool, we can have the world's most expensive and deepest backyard koi pond!

He didn't like that idea. Ugh. Scrub the algae, skim the crud.

Toss Unruly into the shallow end because she kept daring me to.
*gasp* Did I just admit that in my outside voice? Ooops!

Add the shock and ph-balancer and run the filter.

Yup. As we suspected, the filter is crap. Crap crap crap. We will be getting a new filter in the next couple of weeks, thank goodness. I just wanted to get it started so maybe it will be swimmable by Memorial Day. It won't be sparkly blue while we use the current piece of crap filter, but it may be less like a swamp and more like a lake in a couple of days.

And while I'll swim in a lake, my body ain't gettin' anywhere NEAR a swamp!

Home, home with the kids

Ahhh...spring break. I'm home with the girls for a few days, mostly just to make sure they don't murder each other while Hubby and I are at work. Besides, it's been awhile since I've had more than a weekend off and frankly, I need the break. I love my job, but sometimes, I just have to get away for a bit before I feel the driving need to hang everyone in the office by their toenails. Of course, spring break has to be freakin' cold so I'm not going to want to do much work outside. What happened to my beautiful spring weather? It's cold, freezing cold, and I'm wondering how many of my plants will survive this lovely weather sent to us from the Great White North. Damn Canadians! They can just keep their cold weather to themselves. I'm all for sharing, but this is ridiculous.

I'm not quite sure what's on tap for the next few days, but I'm hoping to get some more pasture work done. It's a never ending job, and I know if I don't get the weeds under control now, before they are huge, I'll never get them under control this season. We also need to make a trip to Rural King for feed and bedding and hopefully, another duckling and a Toulouse goose or two. I'd really like to have a pair of swans for the pond, but those suckers are pricey and mean. The one Pekin duckling we have now, I think he/she feels freakish. It looks freakish as it's MUCH bigger than the chicks and the mallard ducklings. Poor little guy, I completely sympathize. I know what it's like to be a freak! Of course Hubby told me the duck does not feel like a freak, probably doesn't even realize how different he/she is, but I feel for it. And that's enough.

Hubby got a decent-sized bonus at work this week and he was going to keep it all for himself! How dare him...share and share alike, I say. I'd love to work for a company that actually gave out real bonuses instead of the near-nothing bonuses we get around Christmas. A $50 bonus for Christmas that doesn't come til after Christmas, have you ever heard of such lameness? When he got his bonus I had visions of fencing and gardens and plants dancing in my head with the dollar signs, but he has visions of a new pool filter. Okay, we need a new pool filter, desperately. The one we have now is an absolute piece of shit. It doesn't do crap for filtering out the bad stuff. We spent the last months of summer fighting algae bloom every day just to keep it from morphing into a swamp, and that was with the filter working nearly 24/7. The current filter is one of those diatomateous earth ones and it's extremely high maintenance. A DE filter requires the addition of this powdery dirt stuff that is supposed to filter the ick out, but the filter is so bad the DE dirt just blows right into the pool and settles in a nasty film on the bottom. How fun is that? I want to enjoy the pool, not spend every day messing with the filter and trying to vacuum the filter medium back OUT of the pool! So, a sand filter is on the list of must gets before the weather warms up enough to open the pool. I guess my plants are going to have to wait, but the fencing....we really need fencing so I can get more of that pasture done.

No fencing = no new horse for me.