Skip to main content

flood gates

The pond dam behind our house has a small flat area in one "corner" called a spillway. I've only seen water flow over it a a few times since we've lived here - during hurricanes or extended heavy rain times, and once when a dead turtle got stuck on top of the drain pipe and we had a day of rain.

But about a month ago, something got stuck inside the pipe (the country in me wants to write "down inside" but Bobby always gripes when I stick the extra preposition "down" in front of another preposition), and the water level has been quite high and has been going over the spillway at a regular rate since then. Since the workers have cleared a path for the sewer line near the spillway, I was able to walk through part of it and see exactly where it returns to the stream (as opposed to where the pipe empties water on the other side of the dam).

The pond easing over the spillway. It's usually at least a foot lower.

and the stream heading to the woods
 (last week during the heavy rains this entire grassy spot was covered)
and the water easing through the debris that's been cut and mulched for the sewer lines
where it begins to reunite with the stream. I was amazed at how deep this culvert is - at least 7 ft down.
and the water has fallen hard enough that it's created a tiny pond back behind all this mud
a water trail from last week when we had 2 days of rain
standing behind the culvert.
If you look hard through the trees on the left, you can see our house up the hill.
I have pictures somewhere of how high the pond is, but I'll have to find those at a later date. But for those who've been here, it has stayed even with the bottom of the floor boards on the pier the last few weeks (except for 2 rainy days when it rose to the top of the floor boards).

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

get your house in order

My grandmothers were very clean people. My mother thoroughly enjoys cleaning, though she doesn't quite hit the same level my grandmothers were on. I don't enjoy cleaning, but I do like things to be clean. I've almost given up on neatness. One thing that they all instilled in me is the crazy concept that your house must be in order before you go somewhere big - like a vacation or something. After all, you could die in a car crash or have to go to the hospital, and then people would go into your house and find it in a terrible mess. Who wants to be remembered by that? So up until this past year, I would sometimes be up almost all night not only trying to get things packed up, but also trying to totally clean house as well. Or should I say, make the house presentable? The Chinese had a horrible superstition that my mother and grandparents would have enjoyed. Spring Festival (the Chinese New Year based on the lunar calendar) required EVERYTHING to be cleaned top to

things we do for love

Saturday we had a baby shower for Bobby's niece. As I was making the mints, Bobby asked what else was on the menu. After I recited off the litany of items, he responded with "No peanut butter?! This shower is for Hannah! What's she going to eat?" (Hannah has had stomach problems over the years and has been unable to tolerate many foods, but peanut butter has been her staple.) Despite my assurances that she would enjoy the foods we were having, he was adamant that I needed to make peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for the shower. Even though I protested that NOBODY took that to a shower, he persisted, and informed me I could make them dainty with my little cutter. And so I did. To my surprise all but 3 were eaten. Who'd a thunk it?

Wait...it's almost March?!?

 10 more months 'til Christmas. This last month has been an absolute blur. Cleaning at Mrs. Bryan's house, cleaning at our house, lots of thinking and brainstorming and rearranging, appointments upon appointments, sinus infection/allergies, Bobby's surgery, meeting with surgeon and finally agreeing to future outpatient surgery for me, ongoing updates from my parents, garden tilled and snow peas, potatoes and beets planted (and yes I left several rows empty between the potatoes and beets for something else to go later as a buffer), chickens are laying, we may have a broody hen..in FEBRUARY!!!, we have two roosters that need to disappear, lots of family have been in from out of town to assist with the sorting and cleaning at Mrs. Bryan's house, and somewhere in the midst of it all I've found time to pay bills and catch up on a few emails. While I no longer feel like our house is a disaster zone, it is still overwhelming. Years ago a friend posted a quote by Martin Lut