resource conservation district

[knabe]

i will be going out shortly on a bunch of site visits for Resource conservation district funding and will prioritize funding with one other fellow board member.

what are some projects you have seen that have proven long term to be mutually beneficial

 

[red]

we're working on our stream. added fencing to keep cows out of water & from eroding banks. Also may build up banks to further prevent erosin & soil loss.

Red

 

[garybob]

Ditto on th e Riparian area thing.

GB

 

[cowz]

Tire tanks with wildlife "guzzlers" are popular here.  Rotational grazing with riparian exclusions.  Leafy Spurge and Dalmation Toadflax erradication.  Salinity prevention in streams.  Environmental conservation education efforts....Acreage management, etc classes usually score the most points.

 

[red]

windbreaks too. Make something nice in the future for your kids.
Also planting a paraire area w/ grasses & native flowers. Wetland reconstruction.
Justme had a pond added last year.

Red

 

[knabe]

received all applications for projects to "compete"

thought i'd share some commonalities.

the properties range from about 1 acre to about one thousand.

many want covering for either feeding areas, and gutters for barns with runoff far away from barn along with better footing around barn or sacrifice areas that won't erode from heavy rains and sloshing around by animals when wet.  standing water in manure or urine spots is a concern.

one feedlot type project is near a stream and wants to cover their holding pens and compost their manure and later spreading.

almost none of them offer native vegetation planting.

most of the smaller ones are counting on too much dry matter to grow than is possible and also a rotational grazing system to break cycle of parasites.

not one of these smaller plans offered comments on marketing offspring and population maintenance.

just for comparison, i have done the above work on my place myself, including a 0.5" slope per 10 or 12 foot pipe length (yes, i measured it) buried pipe collection of runoff from barn through gutter.  on a 50'x38' barn, it cost me about 350 bucks to channel the runoff (incuding under ground piping hooked in with the house downspouts).  i still need some base rock around the barn, or some other system to minimze mud, that will allow easy removal of manure.

what i should do is save this water in a 10,000 gallon underground tank.

anyone know what one of these tanks costs and how to install one?

 

[Jill]

It's actually very easy.  Prior to having children all we had was gutter water, all the guttering from our house runs into a filtration system that goes into 2 tanks in the basement and is then pumped throughout the house, it is now hooked into the cattle waters outside, it has a valve now to change it from tanks to city water when the reserves run low.  What we used were the big tanks you see farmers use for fertilizer, I attached a picture, they are pretty inexpensive and make great storage tanks.  For underground storage you may need more of a cistern type tank, possibly concrete.
Our barn guttering and wash rack drains all go into an underground system that daylights back out at the pond, when we are done, the pond water will then be pumped back up to the storage tanks to be used for cattle waters.

 

[knabe]

interesting,

what is the filtering system composed of?

owning water seems like a decent strategy.

 

[shorthorns r us]

They put one in at a house in TX on the This Old House series.  i think their tank was above ground.  that water was used to water the lawn.  The house that my GG parents lived in has a cistern.  that cistern was dug when the house was built in the 1880s and was nothing more than a dirt sided hole.  She used the water to make tea; being from south of the Mason-Dixon it was "sweet iced tea".  best in the world with with freshly butchered fried chicken and fresh picked corn and black-eyed peas with okra boiled on top.  not to be  a downer;, but , that was part of my eulogy at her funeral.

 

[cowz]

This is a bit off topic, but if you are interested in houses that recycle part of their water, Google "Earth ship".  These are "off grid" houses designed by Dennis Weaver of western movie fame.  We have a lot of these in Colorado.  If you have a pile of old tires, want to build into a side hill and love to work with concrete, this is your kinda house.

 

[knabe]

They put one in at a house in TX on the This Old House series.  i think their tank was above ground.  that water was used to water the lawn.  The house that my GG parents lived in has a cistern.  that cistern was dug when the house was built in the 1880s and was nothing more than a dirt sided hole.  She used the water to make tea; being from south of the Mason-Dixon it was "sweet iced tea".  best in the world with with freshly butchered fried chicken and fresh picked corn and black-eyed peas with okra boiled on top.  not to be  a downer;, but , that was part of my eulogy at her funeral.

awesome sru, at my grandmothers funeral, i did something similar.  something about ol' mother west wind passing and her merry little breezes turn to blow (from the thornton w. burgess children stories)

eulogies are not a downer.  i think they ruined they're cistern by putting the wrong kind of rocks in it.  can't remember what the deal was, the water was basic or acidic i can't remember, but the rocks basically went into solution and ruined the taste.

 

[JbarL]

you could use the slop to cascade  one larger "above" ground open top  cistern, drainding down hill to a small abouve gorund ..ect....alot of money in the ground and seervice costs (electric /motors/tanks/backhoe/ pipe .... ect) with anyting under ground.......at least for me to get enough water  justify my needs...just gettting it out of the lot with some downspout and culvert  and usuing it for drinking water volume is a blessing for me......jbarl

 

[kimbaljd]

I checked out the Earthship website. Kind of off the wall but neat as well.

 

[cattlejunky]

Our barn has gutters connected into field tile.  Wash Rack drain is also connected into field tile.  The last couple of years we had used mulch in our corral, with a rock base which was great in the summer, but very messy in the other months.  This year my husband scraped off the mulch and put down flume.  It is great.  He put it everywhere the calves and cows go close to the barn.  It drains nice and no losing your boot in the muck.  It is nice an firm. 
I am going to mention the water holding system to him. I think that is a great idea.
Have any of you had experience with using spring water in your pastures?  We have a spring in our pasture and would like to use it to water cattle in a seperate pasture. 

 

[knabe]

i have identified two properties, one with a huge spring.  one place has too much steep land, over kill on the house, the other, the spring is weeker, but water is closer to the surface and a former dairy with nice out building.

while watching dr. phi yesterday with my wife, she noticed that one had only ONE bathroom, but 400 more ft2 and she said there was NO WAY she was moving into a house with one bathroom.  i told her life was about comprimises, and she said she wasn't comprimising.  it's not like we ever have guest, or that a 2nd one couldn't easily be added.

man from mars women from venus question

is there an alternative to triple fold towels so that you don't have to take the towel off the hanger to use it and REFOLD after use that is suitable to women?  double folding doesn't require you to take the towel off the rack to use, but it leaves the UNSIGHTLY edges of the towel visible.

seems like oprah could solve this or at least someone with an entrepenuerial spirit.  i wonder if women ever think about helping men help them.  can't remember a show on dr. phil or oprah about this. :

 

[JbarL]

brown paper dispenser.....7/11 style....heated blower...... ......and they both come in stanless>>> ....this is a battle you will never win my friend,from mars........   jbarmarriedlong enoughtoknowthatone

 

[sunny]

Maybe I'm just too much of a farm girl, but my towels just hang over the rod, no folding.  I mean a bath towel, none of those wimpy hand towels!  The bath is decorated with a country theme, and towel colors are dark green or brown, so nobody has to fuss about the "farm dirt stains" (mud, manure and grease).  The wallpaper around the bathroom sink is also a dark pattern to minimize any splatters and splashes.  I have a whole lot more important things to do around here than try to keep ahead of the dirt, so I have decided on a plan to "camoflage" it, so that it still looks good with minimum attention.  Not sure that a "triple fold" person can be converted :

 

[knabe]

here's a different take maybe on underground water storage.  i'll probably go to this this weekend.

http://www.rainsourcewater.com/seminars.html
http://www.rainsourcewater.com/index.html

here's an australian link

http://www.rainsourcetanks.com.au/    don't know if it's the same company as i don't see the same boxes.

 

[red]

Maybe I'm just too much of a farm girl, but my towels just hang over the rod, no folding.  I mean a bath towel, none of those wimpy hand towels!  The bath is decorated with a country theme, and towel colors are dark green or brown, so nobody has to fuss about the "farm dirt stains" (mud, manure and grease).  The wallpaper around the bathroom sink is also a dark pattern to minimize any splatters and splashes.  I have a whole lot more important things to do around here than try to keep ahead of the dirt, so I have decided on a plan to "camoflage" it, so that it still looks good with minimum attention.  Not sure that a "triple fold" person can be converted :

I'm like you Sunny! I hate white or pale colored towels. Ours look pretty bad for the wash jobs but they still do a good job. My grandfather had a bunch of old shop type towels. I inherited them. Still going strong after all these years.
I do think that while doing laundry that we're either the dirtest people or the cleanest. Guess it depends on how you look at it!

Red

 

[knabe]

I do think that while doing laundry that we're either the dirtest people or the cleanest. Guess it depends on how you look at it!

Red

doesn't that belong in the job app thread? ;D