Donkey Drainage

What a terrible title for a blog post, right?  Don't worry, nothing is draining from the donkeys!  At least nothing that isn't pretty normal. Ha!

The drainage I'm talking about is in the donkey yard/pen.  When it rains a lot, like it has this fall, water flows from the roof of the chicken coop and from the grassy area in front of my corn crib barn, and flows directly under the gate to the donkey yard, down the slight slope, and pools at the fence line and at the entrance to the donkey shed.  The donkeys tramp through the mud, obliterating any little channels I try to excavate to move the water away from their stall.  It turns into a muddy mess, and the donkeys get their feet dirty every time they step out of their room.  

I've pondered different solutions to this.  Some of the engineering solutions, such as drain pipes, ditches, and site re-grading, would work wonders, I'm sure, but in practice, I don't have any equipment for jobs like that.  I think my best idea so far is to dump a giant load of sand in the yard.  I think this would at least keep the donkeys from sinking to their ankles in the mud, because the sand would pack down hard, and they could walk on it even when it was wet.  But, I don't have a load of sand either!  My temporary solution is to cover the mud with old hay.  

All that old hay helps the mud situation, for sure, but it doesn't last that long, and makes the drainage worse.  Organic matter is building up along the fence line and flattening the grade, which prevents the site from draining even more.  Plus, it's not a small job to cart in enough hay to keep two heavy animals from sinking.  If drainage elves were real, like I wish, they would come and remove about four inches of perfectly mixed garden soil from the downhill side of the pen, improving the drainage, and then they would cover the ground with loads of course sand.  Then they would put gutters and rain barrels on the roof of the chicken coop.  They might even build a roof over the donkey yard, so the donkeys and I could stand out of the rain.  I would leave cookies for the drainage elves, if only I could coax some in.  

Rufus doesn't see what the big deal is.  It's just a little mud.