All For Naught....

Throughout the farm Mark has put in trails for the tractor. In one location, about 5-6 years ago he placed a pipe and created a culvert for the overflow stream from the pond. It has held steady until this year, when it washed out pretty badly while we were in Arkansas over Christmas break. Here are some pictures of it at that time....unfortunately I don't have pictures of it while it was still intact.

Since the December washout, Mark has been trying to figure out how to fix it, and he finally ordered another large pipe segment to place beside the first one. Two weekends ago we went and spent the day putting the second pipe in place, hauling gravel and rocks to secure it in the new location. It started raining and we kept on working until late, and getting home after 10PM that Sunday night, but we felt good about what we had accomplished. I didn't get any pictures of the finished project because of the rain that day. Unfortunately, there was a major storm that came through last week, and when we got back out there this past weekend, both pipes were long gone! We followed the stream down till we found them, a couple hundred yards past where we had left them safe and sound, and one of them completely out of the banks of the stream! It was obvious that there was a large flash flood in the area. We aren't sure if there was a massive amount of water, or if it is just that the ground is so saturated at this time that nothing more would soak in, but....all our hard work is completely destroyed, and now lying on the property of the next landowner downstream! So depressing! We are going to put our thinking caps back on and try to come up with Plan C for crossing the stream...plan A and B are null and void!

Here's the new washed out area....

And here are the pipes, WAAAY downstream! We're not sure how we are going to get them back!