Ditches and Drains and Hard Clay

Our fleet of vehicles (both of them) are becoming operational again.  The Mini now has a brand-new battery, and this afternoon the Honda CRV will have a brand new tire.  So we took turns this morning driving the Mini.  I drove to Town first and found a window of opportunity in the midst of the more or less continual rain we have been having for the past three days, completing three relatively fast miles in a cool, light mist that was refreshing on this humid, mid-60s morning.  Then I quickly returned home and Martha took the Mini to her Mom's house, where they plan to drive Jane's car to Franklin for her radiation treatment today.  Martha plans to run this afternoon if the heavy rain holds off for an hour or two longer.

After Martha had left, I decided to get to work on the new drainage pipe for the rain barrel.  We had positioned this rain barrel below a downspout from the gutter draining the largest roof of our saltbox-style house.  There weren't many saltbox houses in Highlands when we built in 1983, but we had spent a lot of time and research on a design which has held up over the years, with a big stone central fireplace; that steep roof was designed to allow warm air to rise naturally to the upstairs bedrooms, and it has worked well over the years.

The rain barrel worked well, too, for the first year or two after we built our raised garden beds; the summers were dry, and I was often able to water the garden and apple trees with accumulated rain water.  But in recent years, we have had more and more rain; the rain barrel not only serves little purpose, it often overflows and floods the garden beds.  Ironically, had I placed the downspout at the other end of the gutter, I would be faced with digging a mere 10-foot ditch instead of a 40-foot ditch.

I quickly remembered how difficult it is to dig in the hard clay soil on which our house rests, not unlike the famed Georgia red clay soil just down the road a few miles.  I hand-dug the crawlspace myself over 35 years ago, chiselling away with mattock and shovel foot by foot, and creating the half-basement we now have with its spiral staircase descending from the living room.  "I remember you, old friend!" I said out loud as I swung the mattock again and again, heavy wet clay sticking to it, the shovel, and my boots. 

I remembered the parable about the wise man who built his house on rock, not sand.  Actually, not to argue with St. Matthew, but rock requires drilling holes and inserting steel pins to anchor footings securely, common on the mountain slopes around Highlands; clay is much better. 

And it's good stress relief.