Animal Mothers and Babies

 A few of the hundreds of pictures of animals I have collected from the internet. I do not own these pictures and if anyone does, I will cheerfully delete them. Click to enlarge.

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.