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Uhh....I think so? If byproduct of geology means the make up of the soil and rocks in and around a pond. Minerals from silt washed into a pond adds to the contamination and so does the bed rock and soil lining a pond.

Run off from saline seeps can cause trouble too.

I suppose other dry areas that dont have an excess of these minerals dont fight water trouble like we do up here.

Fairly common to hear of bad water.

Good man Jim for hauling water to those cows.


My theory is that all the bad chit builds up and stores itself in the ground.


Takes years and years and then you have a few big rain years and it pushes the funk down lower into the hills until it pushes out and either soaks in the low spot or it keeps flowing down the drainage and in this case into a stock dam.


We've had new saline/alkali spots show up in the last couple years. Took record amounts of rainfall to cause them.

They are drying up a little now but the ground only grows weeds and you do not want to drive anything heavy over it.


I've seen guys lose 50-100 acre chunks to alkali.

So far a couple dozen cattle in the county have been killed by blue-green algae.

Not as common as mineral hardness.

I guess the combination of a cold wet year last year and a cold dry spring....with a HOT dry summer has made blue green algae a problem.

We dont have that yet, but they are saying that you cant even let your dog swim in that water.

This thread might be subtitled, "Death Valley Days". Hang in there good men, better days must be coming.

Our saline seeps have been getting worse with chem fallow Sam.

When we were straight tillage, they were much fewer.


Thats part of the reason we have been seeding grass.

X2!

We were moving cows a couple weeks ago and one of my buddies found two calves down in a sinkhole, washout deal.

Mired in mud, said they were still alive but eye's were sunk in. His horse couldn't pull 'em out. I asked if he shot them and he didn't have a gun.

They went back with a 4-wheeler.


Not uncommon for older cows to get bogged in trying to get a drink.

Sam, the sad part of it all. Pulling them out with a chain by the neck is hard to do. most of the time it works. When it does not, you feel like crap.

That mud sticks like glue.

Around here they call that liquid rock.

The old house well would defoliate plants that you wanted to raise but it would not hurt the grass.

Sam, I killed a good steer a few years back, he was stuck over belly deep. Jake said the neck bones were cracking pretty good. The only other thing might have been to dig the steer out with a shovel, and shovel in sand. I hate losing living cattle.

Never take an easy drinkin' good waterhole for granted.

I had a cow fall into an old hand dug sewer.

It was about 8 feet deep.

Found her after about a week and she was skinny.


I was thinking about how I could dig her an escape ramp with the a back hoe, but the it was miles away.

Panicked, I ran over to the hole a hollered and waved my arms.

She jumped right out. We both looked at each other for a while and went our separate ways.


Found a cow in a sink hole in the creek one time. All that was showing was ears, eyes and a nose.


I grabbed her neck and held her head out of the water while my wife raced home for the loader tractor.


Old cow kept sinking and all I could keep out of the water was her nose, then that went under too and then just bubbles.

She never thrashed or anything with me laying out there in the water holding her head up. I think she knew we were trying to save her. Felt bad about that one.

Mom and Dad's well is like that.

Too much soda.

We will play that at a gig once in a while. Its a good one!

My good friend Dwayne, BC30cal, introduced me to that song.

Friend of mine is from an old place, like me.

We are have been playing together in a band for some time. From the first time we played his dad asked us to learn one song. Just one.

It took a couple years but we finally got around to learning it.

They all fire up and waltz when we play it.

Great song.

I found this little guy hanging out under the sliding barn door today.