Well this may be boring as hell to most of you but its a worthy subject so here goes.
I installed a waterway in this field about 7 years ago. Sod waterways are very necessary as you will see in the pictures to the right in farming areas where the ground is somewhat rolling and water collects and runs fast and destructively down hill...Water has always ran down hill but almost every day on TV or locally we see people trying to avoid that law of "water runs downhill and seeks its own level"...
Yes it does we see towns along rivers almost every month where homes are maybe a foot or two deep in water in the living room...I have never been able to figure this out why people build homes in an area that could some day under the perfect storm be under water...Well anyway thats a story for another day but today its just day to day soil conservation to be talked about...
Well in these two pictures you see the benefit of waterways after a winter where we obviously had a lot of water run off the land very quickly...Probably a very heavy rain, that lasted long enough to do a lot of soil erosion...My field is the one with the green sod in the bottom of the low area. My neighbor who will remain unnamed has ignored natures destructive potential ways, has lost a lot of soil this past winter, he also has an ungly looking mess, and has a potential for damage to his farm equipment when he farms this field and needs to cris-cross this "ditch"....
I am not without guilt in this post today however either. You see I recieved a letter last fall telling me that a spot check had been made, and that my waterway that was constructed at 34 feet wide is now narrower than that, and will need to be corrected. So today I made the trip into the farm service agency to find out what I needed to do to "avoid a trip to the woodshed"...They laughed and simply said put your waterway back to 34 feet wide and we will be good to go and so will you...
So I purchased some red flags and using my measuring wheel found that sure enough my custom spray contractor had indeed a little at a time narrowed my waterway to as little as maybe 25 feet in some areas. I remember the first couple years I warned the spraying operator each time before spraying as I knew this 34 feet needed to be maintained for me to stay out of trouble...But as time passes one kind of gets tired of reminding and each year it suffer from "Roundup Sprayer Creep", and 6 inches here maybe 12 inches there and a few years go by and you have a 25 foot waterway instead of the original 34. Now I must prepare the soil along the watersay and seed it back to tall fescue grass......Well thats it for today, I hope my chemical spray people read this and make note...and also my Conservation people read this to know how much I appreciate the work they have guided me and helped me do to be a good steward of the land....
Most farmers are, some are not but in the long run they pay and pay dearly for lack of good stewardship....
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