480,000 gallons/day Still Not Enough

The tiny blooms of the common bladderwort (Utricularia macrorhiza) may be the size of your pinkie nail,
but they still proved to be a bright spot in an otherwise sobering few days in the marsh

While I signed off earlier in the week with high hopes of large expanses of newly sown millet in our East Marsh, the last couple days have demonstrated how challenging it is to take feet of water off hundreds of acres -- especially when it has to happen fast. This is been an ongoing saga all spring, but now we are truly running out of time (millet needs 60 days to fully mature). Despite the fact that both of our pumps devoted to the east side continue to move water 24 hours per day (at an estimated 480,000 gallons per hour), we just didn't get enough water off our eastern-most unit to give the pilots the green light to come broadcast more seed.

A view of newly exposed mud in our eastern-most unit (the 100-acre "Dinky Track") as of Wednesday afternoon;
while there is a lot more "dry" ground compared to just a few days prior, there is still a good amount of area (80 acres+)
with 4-12" of water remaining

Constant monitoring this week has lead to the conclusion that we have to continue to pump through the holiday weekend -- maybe not through the 4th (next Tuesday), but close. At this point, it all comes down to pumps continuing to run and major thunderstorms continuing to miss the marsh. We got about 0.4" of rain overnight last night. At this point, no rain is best, but we were still able to drop another 4" or so in the last 24 hours. We just have to pray that daytime heat doesn't build to the point that a 2-3" rain falls directly on the site.

I have to admit that it is hard to keep my morale up under these situations. We know that the millet seeding would (will) make for some major improvements if we can get it sown and growing, but we are already thousands of dollars into a contingency budget labeled as the "unexpected," and each day of pumping costs hundreds of dollars more. This is yet another lesson in patience.

P.S. The bladderwort photographed on the top of the page is totally worth its own post. The submerged macrophyte (mostly underwater plant) is carnivorous . . . think Venus flytrap . . . but it does its dirty work under the surface of the water. I will collect more photos next week and provide more detail soon.

Happy 4th of July!