This month marks our 6-year anniversary of arrival at Shady Grove Ranch. Six years, in the context of farming, is hardly any time at all, and yet we’ve come a long way and done a lot of cool stuff and been through a lot of intense experiences! But boy, has it gone by fast. It’s especially fun to chat with our customers who have been with us from the beginning, and to hear them reminisce about “back when” we only had one [human] baby–and now we are nearly to four!
One of the things we’ve been working on from the beginning is to improve the state of our perimeter fences, and we are almost done. A lot of the property was highly overgrown when we arrived, and several of the fence lines were virtually inaccessible without clearing out the thorns, brush, and vines with machinery. Last year we were able to hire a mulching service to plow a fence row through most of the critical areas, and this year we are working to install the new perimeter fences along those rows.
Matt has a great helper working for him right now who is very experienced and efficient at building fence. So Matt and he were out surveying a southwest border of our ranch in order to determine a game plan when the two of them stumbled upon what appeared to be a huge man-made dam. They climbed up the hill, and sure enough, on the other side was a multi-acre basin with a stream running through it. The dam had a huge cut through the middle. It’s hard to say whether it washed out or was cut out, but the area is probably one of the main water loss areas on the property, meaning it has huge potential to be a reservoir of rainwater runoff to use for watering animals and crops.
It was an exciting and very unexpected find! What we always thought was a brushy woodland mess was really a secret pond site! Here is a photo of what it looks like from the pasture. Would you have thought to go pond-hunting in there?
And so when I heard about this exciting discovery, I had to see it! We took the whole family out on Sunday afternoon to explore. Tevka enjoyed being escorted by Dadda. Ain’t no way her 36-week momma is carrying her up that big giant hill!
It was quite a steep climb up to the top. Here is the view looking down into the basin from the top. You can see that there is already quite a bit of water moving through the bottom.
It’s difficult to perceive in a picture where the cut through the dam is, but in this photo, Matt and Shevi are standing very close to the edge looking down into the cut. The dam continues just past the tall dead tree on the left and circles around to the right. We’re probably 25 feet above the bottom of the basin in this photo. It’s very deep and will make for a great fishing hole!
And so what do boys like better than to go exploring the depths of their world? 🙂 Here is a photo of the Cad-men down by the stream.
Meanwhile, Tevka was making mischief with the camera…
One of our friends suggested calling it Hidden Treasure Pond. I think once it’s built, that is certainly an appropriate name. The boys were very proud of their exploration.
There’s plenty of clearing and dirt work to be done, so it’s another long-term savings goal for the ranch. But it’s pretty cool that most of the work is already done!
