Quick August update
Since the July fun I’ve checked up on our work to see if it did anything, positive or negative.
The upper ditch has captured water and the lower one has not. This means the upper was enough and that the lower should be enough in times of flash storms. We’ll need to dig the trench taking this water to the lower section now so that we don’t end up with mosquito friendly ponds.
The irrigation channel was good in some areas but mostly it created extra flooding on the east side. This is bad on the surface (get it?) but good because the topology is now very clear. We’ll need to expand the channel around the bushes as they have been made into choke points by the widening we did. I expanded the exit point (southwest) and built flood walls using the mud I dug out. This added an extra 2 feet to the height. Doing this along the entire channel should be enough to stop most of the flooding. I’d like to get this done before winter since we’ll need to see how the entry/exit points behave during spring thaw as well as how the leakage from our westerly neighbors affects us. We may need to put a wall of sorts on the property line.
Speaking of which! Apparently the valley was surveyed in the 60′s with what has been proven to be incredibly inaccurate. Some GIS maps from the county show property lines that bear little resemblance to the fences. I don’t know if these are authoritative, but we need a survey! A licensed surveyor would be best, but someone with a GPS and some experience would be a good starting point. There are things we need to dig and build that are dependent on knowing where we are allowed to start and stop. The upper ditches may already be wrong.
Fall is basically started and winter is soon. Come ski! I have guest rooms now.