Wet Wet Wet

When we first viewed the house back in July there hadn't been much rain. The rear third of the property was fenced off and a horse was kept in what we have called the paddock. The ground in this area was largely bare and looked very compacted. Tyre and hoof marks also hinted at the area being poorly drained. We had been waiting for some decent rain to see just how bad it would get and today was the day. In the preceding two days we had 100mm of rain.

The paddock area was pretty soggy with water running down the hill and accumulating here.

This water is going nowhere

Poor drainage and compacted soil

With this amount of water it is going to be challenging to cultivate this area. We had originally been thinking of an orchard here but without some serious drainage work that looks unlikely. I have been reading up on permaculture principles and pondering what to do. At this stage we are taking a wait and see approach.

We also had a few lingering concerns about how the stream would hold up during heavy rain. The answer was "quite well". The storm drain which feeds the stream from the SE corner of the property seemed to be almost at capacity, but the water ran away into Merchant's Gully to the W with no problem. In fact it was nice to see the stream flushed out as quite a lot of debris had collected in the preceding months.