The attached images show the Swale in March 2015. The first image shows the Swale On 14 March, partly full of meltwater. There is still ice under that water. We were in the process of putting up a deer fence to protect whe berm for the next few years while I grow a living fence. We will then take the fence down and move it to another new project.

The second and third photos were taken on 15 March. The 4th photo was taken on 16 March. These were taken as a sequence during a rain storm that dropped about 1-1/4" of rain during about 30 hours. The Swale came within about 6" of being bank full.

By 17 March, the water was noticeably going down, and by 21 March, the water had dropped to nearly the level from before the storm.

The structure was built to stop erosion by capturing and sinking melt water and rain instead of letting it flow over the surface. It seems to be doing that task very well. The water initially rose quickly to the original surface level, then rose more slowly despite the steady rain. We interpret this to mean that water started soaking into the uncompacted berm and perhaps flowed under the berm and started filling the hugeltrench (wood-filled ditch) downhill from the Swale.

This summer I will sink a PVC standpipe into the hugeltrench to enable measurement of of any water that accumulates there.