Care for Your Water Canal to Ease Flow

Tilled garden, starting to fence it in.

In my last post I mentioned that I bartered for a tiller. It has been of tremendous use around the homestead. Not only did I till up our new garden area but I was also able to till out the water canal by the street. This canal, as it was explained to me by a neighbor, is my responsibility to keep cleared out so that when adjoining farmers begin to flood irritate their crops and it comes flowing into my runoff canal, it doesn't back up into the street.

If it gets to the street because my canal is clogged with debris, the city comes out and shuts off the water...to EVERYONE. At least, that's what I was told. So I dutifully spent a few hours trenching out the canal to excellent condition. My only options were digging out by hand with a shovel or tilling it out with my new Husqvarna.

The tiller option was not necessarily less labor, as I thought it would be given it is powered by a motor, but served to be quite a struggle to hold in place as the front mount tines dug through years of overgrowth and uneven canal walls. By the time I was finished, however, the canal was equal distance from side to side and the same depth all the way down the canal. I was quite impressed. My shoulder and back muscles...not so much.

With that project complete, I've turned my focus back to our new garden. There are still fencing bales remaining so I began to put up a perimeter fence. I placed the t-posts ten feet apart which in retrospect seems to be too far apart. I unrolled the bale and hooked my new garden tractor up to it. With the aid of the tractor, I was able to pull the fencing taut and tie it with wire. Two loops around and twisted at the top, middle and bottom of each post held it good and tight.

My new garden tractor pulled the kids around the yard

I got as far as my supplies would allow and am now waiting for more posts to complete the project. About ten more posts should do it as I have ample fencing wire for this project. I'm now eyeballing the area adjacent to the garden for a possible goat pen.

Oh, and I bartered for the garden tractor. I traded to full-sized arcade games that we had in storage. The kids weren't too thrilled but, then again, they weren't the ones responsible for mowing three acres. The Craftsman riding mower is awesome. It's used and worn but I still love having it.

~OJD