Water Management

The water butt by the side of the stables has now filled to 80% and will overflow later today. Yesterday's 24hr rainfall of 13.5mm has over the evening and night now has risen to 25.5mm by 9am.

Drainage channel

An inch of rain in 24hrs and the drainage channel dug yesterday evening to take water away from the shed has only partly worked and now needs extending and a deeper hole digging.

The plan is now to not only dig a hole but also make the channel deep enough to take a pipe so it can be covered over at some point.

A day of digging in the rain seems called for but also more thought on the water butt storage idea.

Update 2016
Forgot to update to say that I continued the trench another couple of feet and found a land drain pipe. It all drained off immediately and had not flooded since,

The Weather

As at 5pm the last 24 hrs have seen 13.5mm of rain (and 21mm for the week) with Easterly or South Easterly winds of between 5 to 11mph and gusts up to 20mph. Temperature between 10 and 13 Deg C.

The Wildlife Pond

It was noted during last winter that 3 days of heavy rain or snow could flood the field. Today 1/2 inch has caused flooding near the stables that will need to be dealt with and also the start of puddles on the entrance to the field but walking in the field showed no signs of water logging which is good but the pond is close to over flowing if it isn't already starting to overflow.

The End of the pond that leads into the drainage channel that was dug last winter may need to be opened up to allow the water to flow out.

One of the next jobs that I will put into the diary is to clean out the drainage channels as they have started to grow weeds and grass in.

Tomorrows weather is set for another whole day of rain so water management will now be important. With Monday set for yet more rain as is Wednesday the field drainage we put in during the winter will now be tested which will be the first chance I have to see if the work has made a difference.

The water butt that catches water from the stable/shed roof has filled by almost a 1/3 today with a puddle/flood of about 3cm deep and 5 ft wide. Dug a channel at 6pm to take water away from shed which has reduced flood to 1cm deep and 1ft wide.