The hobby farm is a special farm. It may serve economic interest but purposely exists to please the owner. The owner uses it as his past time just as someone does kayaking. Many people buy the property for personal relaxation. They want to go into the rural area and just spend some time there. For some it is a way to stay on their own without the bustle of the city. They will buy the farm and then use it as residential facility. Usually these places will be close to the business or work place so that they can retire three in the evening. The existence of the farm will just serve as a kind of leisure for him.
Many people like to live in the west. For them it is a great pleasure to be very close to nature and then have your past time. They would usually want to own large properties but plant some crops to keep the vegetative cover intact. Some will even plant trees to provide shade. For many the hobby farm is one place to which the will retire from work. When they reach old age, they will like to go back to the rural area from which of them come from originally. They will want to do the same kind of work that they used to do when they were kids. So it is like going to back to childhood days for them. On farms with small livestock, these owners will be happy to tend the animals and take them to pasture.
Still more, you have the opportunity to pursue your outdoor sports that have rural settings. Most notable amongst these are fishing, hunting, kayaking, hiking, mountaineering, walking and horse riding.
All said a hobby farm affords much leisure and serves a perfect past time. But there are some challenges posed by this choice. One of them is water management. Not many of the properties have water bodies close by. The cost of drawing water from these could cost a fortune so there have to be other ways to get water for the property that may be situated far way from urban supplies.
One solution that comes to mind is water harvesting. Simply put, water harvesting is the process of gathering water from occasional sources such as rain and then storing that in reservoirs or other suitable receptacles for future use. In some cases the water will be led to a dam where a large pool will be collected to irrigate the farm or provide drinking water for the animals.
For a hobby farm without much need for water, you can use simple rain harvesting methods. You can construct rain gutters on the roof of the buildings and then place rain barrels at the base of these roofs to collect the water during rain. From time to time, the barrels can be emptied into a bigger reservoir or just left there and the water fetched from it when the need arises.
In a more sophicated case you can dig paths on the ground for the water to follow onto a determined place. Tis works best if you have a sloping landscape. As soon as rain falls, it will follow the ways you have and fill a reservoir located on the slope.
Many people use another method whereby earth mould is constructed and then covered wit plastic sheets. The moulds will help the water flow to a particular area and the sheet will prevent the mould from getting muddy and then been washed away.
Many people also use underground water storage tanks. They will direct pipes from the initial way to the tanks.
If you have a lot of run off water in your hobby farm, you can direct them to the crops for natural irrigation.
