Feast or Famine

I know too much of a good thing can be bad for you-sweets, tv, internet.  The list can go on and on.  Well, right now the "good thing" that is turning out bad is water.  We have been getting rain off and on for the last 2 weeks and it doesn't seem to be ending.  We have been in an extreme drought for the past 2 years, so you would think I would not be complaining, but we can't always be happy, can we!  ;)  I was thrilled when this rainy system started, but 4+ inches later, I'm ready for a little reprieve. 

The creek near my parent's farm has been out of it's banks for several days now.  We haven't had a lot of water for the past several nights where we live, but further up stream, they've had buckets dumped on them, and that has been keeping the water levels up.  Luckily the road hasn't been washed out yet, but if it keeps it up, the road will be under before we know it. 

Usually this creek is just a little trickle of water.  It had even dried up for several months last year.  Now it's only a couple feet from the bridge.  The bridge stands about 20 feet over the creek, so there is A LOT of water here now.

When we bought our place 5 years ago, we had a few big rains that flooded our front yard.  Our house sits approximately 300 feet from the road, so we have quite a large yard.  It also sits lower than the road, so there is a berm of soil between the ditch and our yard.  Over the years, the soil had worn and eroded away.  The berm wraps around the north side of our tree row and west along the trees.  It too had worn down over the years.  Due to the erosion, water would run down the south side of the berm and into our yard.  One large rain and our front yard was completely under water.  Knee deep water!  20 feet from the house!  I was scared at first, but then realized that the water would run across the driveway into the field. 

After several pools showed up in our yard over the next 2 years, my husband decided to talk to a local construction company that digs ponds.  The soil from the pond would go to raising the berm to keep water out of our yard.  We brought the front berm up about 3 feet and the north side of the tree row raised about 5 feet. 

Once we were done with the pond we sat back and waited for the rains to come again.  Guess what happened.... 2 years of drought.  I think we had a total of 4 inches of rain in those 2 years.  It was probably more than that, but it sure felt like we only had a little bit.  We had a crop failure and the pond was quickly loosing feet of water.  We have a pretty good supply of ground water close to the surface, so the pond kept some water in it at all times.  There were a few months last summer that we thought it might dry up. 

I guess I should quit whining about the rain.  We were begging for rain for the last 2 years and now, we have it.