Category Archives: Farm

A Lot of Rain

Today is the second day of a massive rainfall event throughout southwest Missouri. Here, I recorded 4.69″ of rain yesterday and 3.07″ of rain today, both amounts shattering my previous one-day record for precipitation amounts. Flooding in the creek was at its highest on Saturday night after dark.

Sandstone Spring, looking upstream from our foot bridge. Note the scouring of leaves from the bank.
Sandstone Spring, looking upstream from our foot bridge. Note the scouring of leaves from the bank.

Continue reading A Lot of Rain

Pearl Creek Quicksand Strikes Again

Today, I took the day off to run errands, take care of business, and get some work done that couldn’t be done over the weekend. Part of this was to order a truckload of sand so I could reseat the water tank we use to harvest rainwater for the garden and chickens. It’s an 1100-gallon tank, so it weighs more than four and a half tons when full! It needed a more stable base than what I originally built for it.

As some of you might remember, the ground at Pearl Creek Farm tends to be a little loose and can get pretty soft after a rain. I thought we were in the clear because of the cold, dry weather, even for a dump truck, but you can probably guess what happened next.

The ground and snow were indeed frozen, but the slight incline up towards the barn was too much for the loaded truck. The back tires turned the crusty snow to ice with every spin and the back end was sliding back and forth. Dumping wasn’t an option because the truck was under a low-hanging electric wire. Then, the front tire started to sink in the soft, sandy soil. Pulling forward wasn’t an option because it was just too soft.

Stuck Dump Truck
Stuck Dump Truck

Continue reading Pearl Creek Quicksand Strikes Again

Rough-cut walnut boards

Walnut trees are common on our farm, even invasive one might say. A particularly large one was unlucky enough to be caught dropping walnuts in our frog pond. It had to go because walnuts are poisonous to aquatic animals. So, we cut it down. It just so happens I have a friend with a sawmill and the facilities to process the wood.

Half of a large, sawed walnut log
Half of a large, sawed walnut log

In the course of a day, we lifted an entire walnut log, twice: once to load the cut boards on the trailer (above) and the pickup, and again to put them on a rack to dry (below).

Four large rough-cut walnut logs, stickered on a drying rack
Four large rough-cut walnut logs, stickered on a drying rack

Taking Out the Trash

Wire and posts from 20 meters of fence
Wire and posts from 20 meters of fence

Pearl Creek Farm is 10 acres in size and carved out of an original 87 acres, with the remainder owned by our neighbors. The original owner, and probably the owners before him, had fences crisscrossing the place like stripes on Christmas candy. Few of the fences could turn a cow or horse, but they seemed to give us fits and always seemed to be in the way.

When you have only 10 acres to roam, you don’t want your way impeded by anything unnatural. Originally, you would have crossed three fences walking from one end of the place to the other, no matter whether you started at the north or west boundary! This wouldn’t do, of course. We set out to remove the fences pretty much everywhere to open the place up.

Continue reading Taking Out the Trash