Tag Archives: water

Gullies, part 3

rich/ July 2, 2013

(Part 1 , Part 2) Gullies in the landscape cause several problems, mostly more rapid dewatering of the surrounding landscape in the dry season, and increased erosion as the gullies move upstream, taking valuable topsoil away.  Mossback Farm experienced severe gullying in the years before we purchased the property, due to mismanaged cattle grazing.  This grant was an attempt to

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Ram pump troubleshooting

rich/ February 25, 2013

Can you tell the difference between this video   and this one?   Hint…the first video, the pump is leaning to the right, downhill, and every cycle it hisses, rather than just does its positive click sound.  The second version is far superior, and pumps nearly it’s historic 150-175 gallons / day. Between a tree coming down on the gravity-fed

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Ram pump progress

rich/ January 21, 2011

Last summer we installed our ram pump to get us more water for the farm. Our well pump recently failed, which drove me to write up the details of this recent project. Our property is split by 4 seasonal creeks, one of which is nearly perennial. Work in the past has focused on increasing the riparian cover and shade on

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Gullies 2 – Gully plugs

rich/ October 2, 2010

(Part 1 is here, Part 3 is here_ One of the downsides of managing a property that has been abused in the past is dealing with erosion issues. But, as the old saying goes, crisis = opportunity. Our property was overgrazed heavily in past years, to the point that some of the wet areas were eroded over 10 feet in

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Gullies

rich/ October 2, 2010

This started out as a single post, but I just kept rambling, so I’ll be dividing it into 2 parts: a background on erosion in general, and gullies in particular, followed by part 2, actions that we’re doing here on the farm to mitigate their impacts. Comments are appreciated A gully is a response that land makes to erosion, either

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Farm Design

rich/ June 10, 2006

Folks who are familiar with our farm and website know that I do some landscape consultations on the side, and that the design page for the farm has been idle for quite some time. I hope to change that soon, but here’s something to tide you over until then. I’ve put together a farm design file, using ArcPublisher. The free

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