Water problems

Lots of snow. Frozen ground. Very cold then a rapid warm up. It rained all of last night and at times poured rain. The water has no where to go.

The driveway is under water.

Low areas out in the hayfield collect water.

Now the problem...

I have some small hay bales left to feed the cattle but I planned to now switch to using the large hay bales. Normally most of the snow is gone by the 1st of March.  Not this year.

First I had to remove all the recent snow around the big bales.  Tuesday I shoveled half the snow.

Today, Thursday, this is what I found at noon. While this is not a low area, it is a few inches lower than the land around the loading corral. And since we have lots of water all of a sudden... I have a problem. Good thing I had placed the bales on wooden pallets to keep them off the ground.  I got a pump to remove the water before it rose higher.  In the afternoon the water came from snow melt as fast as I pumped it away.  Finally in the evening I got ahead of the water and lowered the amount.

Another problem is that the tarp is frozen in ice.  For our mid-January thaw apparently some water collected here that I didn't see.  Everywhere else melted water eventually disappeared into the ground. Not here as the bottom is an inch of ice. The tarp is frozen into the ice. As the ice is under water it is not softening and melting.

Tomorrow I hope to get the tarp free and a bale out for the cattle.

Daisy helped me as I worked.  When she got tired of sitting on the tarp she climbed up the fence and eventually climbed on top of a railroad tie.

Daisy telling me it is time to go back to house.