Water, water everywhere...

[altivo]

The pastures are flooded, perhaps the worst I've seen in the eleven years we've been here. I attribute this not just to recent rainfall, which has been steady but only a half inch a day or so, but to the destruction wrought upon the local drainage system by developers to our immediate north and uphill, and the neighbors to the west who have cut hundreds of trees out in a two year period and then overgrazed the newly exposed areas. The water that used to be held back and absorbed by dense woods on that neighboring land is now running over the surface and downhill into our pastures, carrying with it a lot of the remaining topsoil from next door. The arsehole developers, who are total greedy idiots, "sculpted" what used to be a 200+ acre cornfield to make "attractive" hills and dales. The water is collecting in the low places. That field was tiled to carry off excess moisture, but of course they broke up the tile system. The low areas are supposed to function as "retaining ponds" (euphemism for mosquito breeding grounds) but they don't retain. The water percolates through the ground and emerges just uphill of us, where it all runs over our pasture and out our creek. All this probably has the makings of a gigantic lawsuit in it, but of course if I bothered the attorneys would get all the funds and I'd still be stuck with the flooding. This part of Illinois was one vast swamp back in the 1840s when Chicago was young. After the Civil War returning soldiers worked digging trenches and laying tile lines by hand to drain the fields that then provided ultra rich soil for corn, beans, and vegetables. Now developers are being allowed to break up that huge drainage system in order to make profits from the resale of farmlands as suburban housing tracts, and the swamps and floods are returning. Gee. Who would have expected that? There is no history, of course, anything that happened before we were born, or that we [conveniently] don't remember becomes a myth that never happened.

Dreamwidth, a new blogging site based on LJ software with enhancements and active management, is going to open beta status as of tonight. That means they are starting to sell paid accounts, but it also means that free accounts are being made easier to get. I already had a beta tester account, so I have a small number of "invitations" I can send out. If you had already registered using OpenID, then you don't have to ask for an invitation. They say they will be sending you one automatically in the next day or two. But if you had not yet registered at all, and want a free account, you will need an invitation. I'll pass the ones I have out first come, first served. Just let me know. I'll need the e-mail address to which you want the invitation sent. You do not have to register the account from that address, but can use a different e-mail to register if you choose. Send me e-mail or a private message on LJ if you are interested.

Comments

[soanos]

Here I am, with my new account, it looks a bit confuding at the moment.
I'll probably use LJ for a while still. o.o

Add me ;)

[altivo]

Added and welcome. Shouldn't really be that confusing, it's still just LJ software running the place. You can keep both accounts and post to both at once by using the cross-posting feature here.

[soanos]

But, but but... It looks different...
The colours are all confusing and, and...

X.X *freaks out and keels over from brain ache*

[altivo]

LOL! They have a special color scheme just for zebras. All black and white. ;p

[soanos]

Well, how do I enable it? :P

[altivo]

What? OpenID? Well now that you have an account, you don't need it. You probably have a valid signon cookie for both sites so you just comment on either one.

OpenID is enabled when you go to post a comment, and the system doesn't recognize you. It offers three choices (true for either LJ or DW): Anonymous, OpenID, or Registered user with password. If you choose OpenID, then it prompts you for your URL on an OpenID site. So if you're posting to DW, you'd put soanos.livejournal.com there. Then you get prompted for an e-mail address and to choose a password for the OpenID. They send a message to the e-mail address with a link you have to click to validate the account. After that you can sign into DW with the OpenID URL and the password you chose, and comment on journals the same way a DW user can. It's not the same as having a DW account, but it lets you comment with a known identity and associate icons with that identity.

Works the same way on LJ, and you can validate in there using a DW URL.

If you have actual accounts on both sites, then there's no need for OpenID as far as I can see.

[altivo]

Oh, you mean the journal theme and colors? Just go into your profile and try out the available themes. There are only a few right now, and I remember that one of them had a black & white color choice.

[soanos]

Yes, that is what I meant.

I did see it, I will need to look at it later. o.O

[aureth.livejournal.com]

Developers mess up field drainage for their neighbors. Every. Time. My father can curse about this endlessly.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yeah. The disgusting part about it is that this development never would have been approved under todays rules. The land was rezoned 25 years ago "just in case," while environmental requirements were lax and approval only required greasing a few palms. It was held in trust by banks, leased out to a farmer, and waited.

We tried to challenge the actual development when they proposed to start it three years ago, and the county said that the approval was "grandfathered" and their hands were tired. The conservation district came in and marked nearly half the covered area as "restricted" for ground water and wildlife protection, forbidding any buildings, wells, or septic tanks from being placed in the restricted areas. And still they went on, gerrymandering it into four and five acre "plots" that often are shaped like giraffes and snakes in order to have enough buildable land included. Four acres is the smallest piece they are allowed to break out, thank goodness. Since they laid it out and put in roads, it has been continuously flooded, so only one or two lots have sold and no building has been started. But the drainage and mosquito problems are there now anyway. With the economy in its present state, I won't be surprised if the developers go bankrupt, leaving this mess with no one to take responsibility for it.

[equusmaximus.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about the problems you're having out there. Everytime I saw Calgary expanding, and engulfing more and more farmland, I'd cringe. It often starts off with the developers reaching waaayyyyyy out and chopping farms into little acreages, but then it's only a matter of time before the city catches up and those acreages become large lots, and eventually infills. :/

I remember when I first got my driver's license and used to drive out to the various horse-farms outside the city. Now I have to drive a lot further to get to the city limits, and it's just very upsetting. Spruce Meadows, Calgary's claim-to-fame in the Equestrian world, is now fairly deep within the city limits, whereas it had been far outside the limits only 25 years ago.

The worst things about encroaching city-folk (other than the crime) is the idiot factor. People who move out into horse-country, then whine and complain that it "stinks of horses" and actually manage to get zoning laws changed to ban horses. At least out where we are now, it's unlikely that we'll ever have to worry about such things. As much as I like the convenience of things in the city, I'm much happier out here on the farm.

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Grumpy old horses.

Well, we are on a hill and far enough away.

I think you need a ride, Rider. Come aboard and fly me any time.

Imperator

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yep, the idiot factor is the worst thing. I have visions of people letting kids run wild, crossing my fences and annoying my animals, then trying to sue me if their kid gets hurt. I'm zoned full agricultural, as are all the properties along my road, so they can't try to ban horses or chickens or whatever. In fact, the farther of the two developments to the north, which shares a border with the really stupid one that should have been left cornfield, is pushing the fact that they allow horses and barns. (Though unfortunately the few places that have been built in there look more like they will be house-proud suburbanites who own Hummers and two or three SUVs.)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Grumpy is right. You wanna make something of it? ;p

What I really need is hugs.

I know it suucks but...

[bladehorse.livejournal.com]

Is it possible to dig diversion trenches to at least keep the pasture damp instead of flooded out?
On other notes, the grass seed I spread befor the first rains, apperantly didnt take hold, and now all the dirt I moved is slowly running into the stream. Damn frustrating.:(
On other notes, the containment based watrer retention thingies are by state law here in cali for n ew construction. They work amusingly horrendusly, as they fill, then overflow to adjacent areas, in one huge wooosh. Not to mention, its a great way to introduce pollutants Directly into a water table near you. Yes you too can have false flood controll, and polluted ground water. Sounds like the ground is basically clay out there. Good luck getting water to settle there.

Re: I know it suucks but...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Trenching really wouldn't help. Our land is already contoured to drain in certain defined pathways, because we are on a gentle hillside and the primary tributary for the area goes right down our middle and around the arena on the west side. The problem is the sheer volume of water that comes down onto us all at once now, where it used to be a slow trickle, with much of it handled by the tile system that they destroyed. The Brit neighbors had two acres of dense wood and underbrush, too, which absorbed and held a lot of it for gradual release. They've cleared almost all of that, and then let their horses graze under the remaining trees until it's just packed bare earth. Instead of going into the soil, the water just runs over the surface or sits in puddles, so we are draining all their overflow instantly when there's any significant rain.