The Miller Project

What a difference a day makes… or about seven of them anyway.

Mark (who isn’t related to the Miller family but is always up for doing something if it’s outdoors) and I went up today to spend a few hours clearing more wood.  We wanted to spend most of the day up there but I had things in the morning and we had to get back in the evening to watch the Pittsburgh Penguins in game six of the playoffs against the Capitals (which they lost unfortunately).

We realized though, that it really is a great time to do work up there because despite the wet conditions the logs are all exposed and we were able to get at some that would have otherwise taken a while to get to because of all of the grass and other shrubs.  We were able to clear more area for camping as well as clear a better and drier trail from the Howell/Purpurra property.  We also discovered (or rediscovered if Jonathan already realized this) a clearly defined fence line on the north end of the property.  I think that fences surroud roughly 85% of the property which makes everything a lot easier to figure out.

We went along this fence line and tried to cut through some thick growth from the open pasture part of the land to the more wooded part.  It’s pretty swampy but we got a start.  We also laid some logs over the swampier parts that we needed to go back and forth over like little bridges.

The main difference though from a week ago to today is the water level is a little bit lower and it’s more defined exactly where the water is coming from.  There are actually two main paths the water is following from the high part to the low part of the land and two paths the water is following from North to South.

The water flowing from the high parts to the low parts can be taken care (I think) by digging a french drain (as suggested by Jonathan) along the Eastern edge (the higher edge) of the property and the Southern edge.  The two streams flowing North to South can be brought together shortly after they enter our property and the one remaing path dug deeper and wider to avoid creating the marsh we have now.

I still think it will be at least one more long weekend up there before we’re ready to rent a small tractor to get started on this but I think it’s very feasible.  The one other obstacle in the way right now is the power line running to the Howell/Purpurra cabin is down.  The transformer nearest their cabin is actually sitting on the ground and the power lines sag to about six feet off the ground.  I have no idea if the lines are still live and I’m sure not willing to find out and I don’t know what is going to be done about this but there is no way to safely get any large piece of equipment onto our land with the line down.

Here are some pics from today’s outing.

Despite what we found in the heat of last Summer the land does have a tendency to look a little marshy in the Spring.  So those in the family who believed the property to be a marshy wetland were not entirely wrong.

Wanting to do some camping next week Karleigh and I drove up to the property to scope it out and make sure the snow had all melted.  With the late storms we’ve had here in Utah and the elevation of the ranch I figured there might be a little bit of snow so better safe than sorry and we made the drive up there.  I was surprised and relieved to see that there was no snow on the ground in the valley, however, the mountain right above the property still has some snow and it seems to all be funneling right onto our plot of land.

The lower half of the land that is somewhat wet during the summer from unchanneled irrigation water is seriously a swamp complete with frogs.  The upper half that seemed dry last year is barely better than the lower half.  Our fire pit could be a small bathtub to wash off all of the mud that you get while walking around.

The one positive thing is that with all the vegetation still down for the count it is very easy to see all the logs that are strewn about that need to be chopped up.  I think camping is off for now unless someone has a small houseboat they would like to tow up there but we need a few day trips to begin clearing more wood while it’s all exposed.  I can also now see the definite need to get a little trackhoe of some sort to dig ditches along the upper part of the property to channel the melt water to the southern edge of the property as well as a deeper and more defined irrigation canal through the middle running north to south.  This will, of course, require some money so hopefully we can get the family organized and start working on this.

Meanwhile, take a look at what’s up there right now.