Ponds on The Rise

Some ten thousand years ago, when the glacier retreated, it left behind huge chunks of ice that were buried by soil. As the land warmed, the buried ice chunks melted leaving behind a pond. We have two of these small ponds on our farm.

People in the know call these ponds “water-table ponds,” which means they mark the level of the aquifer. As an aside, our farm is located on the terminal moraine, meaning where the glacier ended. We are also on a water divide. The rivers and streams a couple miles west of us flow to the Wisconsin River, then to the Mississippi and onto the Gulf of Mexico. The waters making up the aquifer under our farm flow east, eventually to Lake Winnebago, the Fox River and ultimately to the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1966, when we bought our farm, our ponds had nearly dried up. But to our surprise, waters in the ponds rose a little more each year until they filled the valleys where they are located by the mid-1980s. But then starting in the early 1990s, they retreated again until each of the ponds was scarcely an acre in size.

This past year, with ample rains, sometimes more than ample (we received 15 inches in ten days in August) the ponds once more rose, nearly to the high water mark they had reached in the late 1980s.

In the above photo, my grandson, Josh home for the Holidays is working on the ice, cutting trees and brush that the pond overran last summer. The high water killed them.
I’m looking forward to 2019 and how our ponds will fare.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Never Curse the Rain.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

January 8, 9:00 a.m.,Wausau. Auditorium Main Bldg, Wausau Campus of University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Barns of Wisconsin

February 9, 2:15 Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison

February 10, 1:00 p.m. Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison

PURCHASING BOOKS AND DVDs:

How about an Apps book for the New Year? Order your signed Apps books and DVDs from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, a fundraiser for them. Phone: 920-622-3835 for prices and ordering.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.
www.wildroselibrary.org
Popular recent Books:
Once a Professor
Old Farm
Farm Country Cookbook
Cold as Thunder (a novel)
Simple Things: Lessons From the Family Farm.
Whispers and Shadows
Never Curse the Rain