Lucky's Off-Leash Dog Park Final

 Lucky and I walk up to the high level dam almost every day. It takes about an hour from home and 45 minute coming back as it is mostly down hill with fewer side trips. It is sad to see everything dried up and growing up to trees and brush compared to 12 years ago when Bobik and Volk used to walk up there with me.

August 2009, water flowing from the settling pond

April 30, 2021, dry 

At the end of the concrete spillway was a catch basin to hold excess water
The pipe made sure there was always water flowing to the creek

In 2009 the creek ran slowly but steadily

There was little if any trees, or reeds growing along the lower creek bed

Today it is mostly pools of stagnant water with weeds and algae

Makeshift dams provide pools for livestock to drink from

The creek used to keep the community and farm herds separate
Now there is a dirt crossing

Lots of buttercups

Fruit trees blooming all along the concrete spillway

Remnants of an old barn from Collective Farm days

Lucky is waiting for me to head for home

Thank you for going with me on my walks with Lucky. It would be nice if the settling pond still had water that overflowed into the stream in the valley below. But time marches on and the environment changes with human action or lack of it. I hope the commercial farm herd and flock will keep the weeds and shrubbery down and possibly reclaim some of the grazing land between the dams.

Lucky's Off-Leash Dog Park Continued

 Lucky does not stray far from me when he is off leash. He will go charging off, turn around and charge back at me as fast as he can. He loops around me like Chinese fighter jet around and American spy plane. He crashed into me once and now I turn sideways when he gets close.

Lucky waiting for me at the top of the hill to go down into the valley

Lucky loves to go exploring IF I go with him. He wants to run through the bushes where the rabbits couldn't go and neither can I. I did that once and found myself trapped. I had to crawl out through a muddy ditch.

Lucky waiting hopefully. Sorry, Bud, no deal. (Bud is one of his names.)

The valley between the high and low level dams is isolated with a dirt ditch on the north side and a concrete spillway ditch on the south side. Someone recently pushed dirt into the concrete ditch, enough to cross on foot or apparently on dirt bike. We have crossed there several times and walked up to the high level dam and back but did not go down into the valley.

Better labeled Google Earth map of the area

Dirt fill crossing area with dirt bike tracks

Walking along the edge of the ditch to the high level dam

The square hole in the above photo was the control gate for the settling pond. Heavy planks were added or taken out as deemed necessary. I cannot understand what all the ditches were for, other than the concrete spillway. They even dug a ditch and put in a culvert at the spillway end of the lower level dam. Is it to drain water from the spillway or from the dam; what is its purpose?

The culvert at the end of the Lower level dam opens into the spillway

The other end of the culvert and the ditch along the lower level dam

Lucky always wanted to explore the valley between the dams. Years back Bobik and Volk chased a rabbit down there and I never saw them for an hour. Anyway, two days ago, I made Lucky happy and followed the dirt bike tracks down a shallow grade to the bottom. There is actually grazing available down there but no way to get livestock in or out except now across that dirt fill in the spillway. There was at least one cow down there last year but getting a herd or flock in and out might be a challenge. The old creek bed, pre dams etc. was visible and choked with trees. We wandered around for a while then climbed back up. Shallow grades are a must for this old man.

The old stream bed, choked with trees

Potential grazing area

I wish my readers would walk with me in this area as it is a good workout and rather pretty. I hope my photography and blog posts help you to feel as though you were there. I have one more post to do, to show what lack of water from the settlement pond is doing to the stream in the former communal grazing area.

Click on the pictures to make them larger.

Lucky's Off-Leash Dog Park

 Until this February, I walked Lucky on leash only. He like to chase cars, bicycles, motorcycles, and people so I have to hold him by his collar until they pass to avoid problems. And it isn't just chase; it is snarl and lunge. And it isn't all, just some. I cannot see a pattern of any kind. He will ignore one car and snarl and lunge at another. He doesn't like Ladas, vans, or trucks but not always He is getting good with bikes and most pedestrians. If there are people working beside the road he will ignore them. He is not keen on people with shopping bags but not always. Walking him on leash stresses me out and does not give him enough exercise.

August 2012. Four years earlier there
might have been 20 in the community herd

Last fall I walked him up a side road east about 2 km, past an area that was used for common grazing in times past when villagers had cows. Those days are gone and a big commercial farm about 2 km SE was grazing cattle and sheep. So in February we went back to that grassy area as there were no livestock, vehicles, or people, and I let him run. It was awesome. 

We went the same place several times and then started exploring farther back up the hill on the south side, just to give Lucky new places to run and sniff. I took lots of pictures.

I had walked that area in 2009 with Volk and Bobik and it had certainly changed in the 12 years. In honour of yesterday being Earth Day (I think) what I will try to do is show you where we walked and the changes that took place in the landscape and vegetation. It may take a couple of posts. So if anything isn't clear in this one, maybe I can fix it in the next. I have so many pictures and can't use them all. Clicking on the pictures will "Embiggen them".

Large Area Google Earth Overview (from 2019)

Enlarged Google Earth Overview (from 2019)

Some background. Zhovti Vody is a uranium mining town. It has/had a deep shaft mine on the north edge of the city. The mine had a great deal of water infiltration which had to be pumped out. Three steel pipes ran at least four km, past our place and up to a settling pond about 2.5 km east of us. The holding/settling pond was created by a dam across the valley. The top of the dam is about 35 meters higher than the Zhovti River which runs past our house. 

A second dam down the valley, is much shorter across and about 15 meters below the high level dam. I assume it was to provide a backup in case the upper dam broke.

Water was flowing constantly through those pipes the first years after we moved here in 2008. But sometime in the past few years, the mine closed and the pumps stopped. Last year, they ripped out the pipeline for salvage, meaning the mine will not be reopening.

Wide view of the pipelines from the mine to the holding/settling pond November 2009

Wide view of the settling pond from the top of the dam August 2009

Wide view from the top of the dam a couple days ago. Bone dry.

This is enough for one post. More in a few days.

I think I got it this time

 I found an article that explained how. Finding stuff is easy if you know the magic words. 

 https://mailchimp.com/help/share-your-blog-posts-with-mailchimp/#Setup_step 

Ignore YouTube how to videos as they are old.

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The emails to subscribers will go out at 4 am tomorrow New York time.

If you are going to give up Feedburner on your blog, find something simpler than Mailchimp to replace it with. 

Test Run for Email Subscribers

 Setting up MailChimp is not near as simple as it was made out to be and I am still not sure if it is working. I hope I have corrected the problem and will wait 24 hours to see if anyone got notice or something in their email. Please let me know by leaving a comment, by return email, or by DM.

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Moliere’s dictum: Writing is like prostitution: First you do it for love, then for a few select friends, and then for money.

If anyone is wondering about the flurry of activity on my blog, I need to do my income tax and any excuse to put it off is taken

Grocery Prices April 15, 2021

 Tanya went shopping yesterday and dropped about $150 as she had not been for about 10 days. I grabbed the receipts and set out to determine unit prices. Everything is in Ukrainian of course but I was able to figure out about 90% of the items myself and Tanya gave me the rest, some of which I should have known. The FX rate is today's off the internet but is close enough even though the actual bank charges will be different.

I would love it if people would send me equivalent prices from Canada or USA in the comments.