[NubianSoaps.com]

Amy it's exactly what I did this year. I have a mote, you have to either jump over it or walk through it, to keep the flooding water, mostly that comes off the roof, but my barn is on the down side of the highest point in the county, so we do get runoff from just the ground slope. So I had my nephew dig this big ditch all the way around the north, east and west sides of my barn, so the roof runoff, runs off right into it, it then disperses the water around the barn and out to the pasture, it works wonderful. With all of the dirt he dug out of the mote I had him throw it towards the barn. I dug out all the way around the north and west sides of my barn and put glavanized flashing into the ground and up the wall about a foot, screwed this in, back filled it and then used the motes dirt to fill it up about a foot more. I then got a load of sand and filled the barn in. Don't get sugar sand, which is what I got, it has taken months for it to really pack down, and I do leaf blow off sand on my slab twice a day after milking. Once the barns are bedded with winter all of that will calm down.

I definetly would pack it down with dirt, but the top layer should be sand to help with moisture. Couse none of this is easy to clean...right now the sand is so packed down that I can use my leaf blower to blow the nanny berries into a pile and rake them up without loosing much sand. Other than sand to brush off, the girls are soo much cleaner this year!

Oh I also keep the water troughs near the mote, so if a automatic float fails and sprays water and floods anything, the water only can go in the mote and not my barn. Vicki