Is this a "water table" problem or lack of or very poor drainage
issue? It sounds as if water ponds and holds. Ground cloth and a
gravel fill sounds better to me. If you still want to pave the
entryway, the gravel bed sure won't hurt, and will allow you to
grow grass over it if that is your long term decision. Improve
the surface run off, stabilize what you have, see where you are.
How were you going to get the concrete to the location if you
can't drive or walk through it?

Lime slurry injection, lime blending, fly ash blending work at
water proofing subsoils, especially clay soils. I would need more
information to help more. Contact your local ag county agent,
they may have much better ideas that work in your locality.

--
______________________________
Keep the whole world singing . . . .
DanG (remove the sevens)




wrote in message
...
I am in the midwest where we just had well over a foot of rain in
ten
days. I am on a farm where I have horses. In front of the barn
I had
2 horses in a 30X60 foot paddock. That has always been a muddy
spot,
except in the real hot weather when there is little rain. But
it's
never been this bad......

I had these horses sinking in up to 2 feet deep in some spots,
so I
finally had to move them, which they are now on fairly solid
ground,
but have no shelter except trees until I build something.
Anyhow, I
have decided to abandon this paddock in front of the barn
because it's
always been muddy and because of that, I cant get wheelbarrows
and
especially my tractor inside to clean manure. Its so bad now, I
had
to remove a sheet of the tin siding in the rear just to get hay
in
there to the indoor animals. Of course that means crawling
between
the horizontal boards.

To solve this mess, I plan to pour a concrete pad in front of
the
door. The problem is I dont see this mud getting really dry
anytime
soon. There is still water seeping out the edges of it and
running
down the hill next to it. Another farmer told me it probably
will not
dry at all this fall, and I will have to wait until we get
another dry
spell next summer. Well, I cant wait that long. I need to be
able to
get into that barn in a normal manner again.

My plan is to drape a tarp over the area in front of the door so
that
it wont get rained on again, and run a few large livestock fans
to
blow under that tarp to help it dry. Then as soon as it firms
up,
pour concrete over it. But can I pour concrete over semi firm
mud? I
know the concrete will harden, and if I put some rebar in it, it
should remain a solid pad. It will be about 10 x 16 feet.
Will this work? I wont drive any heavy tractors on it for
awhile, but
right now I can not even walk across it without losing my boots.
I dont see any other way to do this. The only other option
would be
to get some heavy equipment to scoop out all the mud about 2 or
3 feet
deep truck it away, and bring in loads of dry soil. But that is
not
affordable, and pouring concrete over fresh fill seems like it
would
be worse than the mud because the fresh soil would not be
settled.

(The remainder of that paddock will become lawn after it dries
enough.
I cant forsee using it for horses anymore, other than just
letting
them mow the lawn for me when the weather is real dry.

Anyone have any advice?

Thanks

Gary