Dam report 2023

 Greetings from the waterside this summer.

The dam is continuing to improve, after filling to capacity and beyond during Spring, we wanted to hold as much of the water as possible. Marty talked to a previous owner of our property who had the dam built. He explained that the dam had never successfully held water above the natural soil line despite it being re-lined with clay shortly after it was made. We decided to try adding bentonite clay, just one bag, around the edges where the leak might be. We waited a week, and as the water level dropped, we checked the back of the dam wall for moisture and targeted the opposite side of the wall for another bag of bentonite. Repeating this over the span of a couple of months, we have narrowed down the problem area to just the south east corner, and concentrated spreading the clay to that area. We're happy to say that the water level has never been this high at this time of year before!

See-through water, can you see fish?

I have read that the sealing of a dam is mostly attributed to an anaerobic layer of muck at the bottom, and the trick is to encourage that condition. It is said that fish poo and organic matter helps in this regard, so here's hoping the abundance of little fish are helping. The clarity of the water is helping the plants grow, as is the addition of a few buckets of shell grit (usually for chickens!) for calcium and pH buffering. The first bucket of shell grit went into the floating island, and the plants responded by growing like crazy!

This year a pair of diver ducks hatched 6 little ducklings, we've seen turtles, lots of little fish (of course) and dragonflies galore. The dragonflies have to be my favourite critters for their work eating the mozzies that were in crazy numbers after the wet spring. It was certainly a sight at dusk to see the dragonflies en mass, especially over the sheep!

We have lots more projects on the go, I'll be sure to update when I can.

Until next time!