Draining the Ponds

After walking the property several times, there seemed to be three main ponds.  After going to Real Property and getting an aerial photo of the property I could see no less than 10 beaver dams.  I called the NYDEC and after a short wait got a one year permit to break dams and shoot the beaver.  Once that was done we were ready to play hydroengineer.  With my wife, Jess  and father-in-Law, Scott we started at the top dam and worked our way downstream using a shovel and a rebar hook to rip a hole in the dams.  In hindsight we probably should have started at the bottom and worked upstream as we kept flooding ourselves out, but it was good to see the water start moving.  Within minutes of breaking a dam we could see the level of the ponds go down.  There has been a lot of rain this spring so it is good for the water to have somewhere to go.  As of yet we have seen no sign of any beaver activity.  I think we got lucky and they already moved on.

The "Barn"

We have had laying hens for the last 3 years, but so far we have not had a coop that was winterized enough to keep them all year.  This year we wanted to build something that would allow us to do that and make the addition of a few pigs.  Again budgetary constraints had us settle on an insulated 12x8ft building with power.  The layout allowed for 44 sq.ft of pig space and 28 sq.ft of chicken space with 24 sq.ft left as food storage.  Its a bit tight, but it will allow us to get our chickens to a mature weight and allow us to add pigs to our livestock inventory.