Waiting For Irene

To prepare for Irene, in addition to all the standard procedures, I decided to dig a ditch to bury the downspout  from the rain gutters on the roof. Currently, the rain runs out onto the surface of the lawn - no big deal when the rain is less than hurricane volume, but a bit of a concern if the predicted rainfall materializes, since it will then flow into the basement.  So, I borrowed a pick-axe from a friend, went to the hardware store for supplies, and began digging.

As most of you in the GNC know, the ground here is very rocky.  I was reminded of this when I saw sparks flying from the pick.  Some of the stones are movable, others were stubborn. I'm guessing the iceberg effect was in play - that the round portion I could see at the surface, poking eight inches out of my trench, was about 1% of the mass of the boulder.  Well, I said to myself, no reason the ditch has to be a straight line.  If the stones won't roll, the ditch will have to go around them.

Two hours of pick-axing later, to my surprise, I discovered there had once been a stone wall at the spot where the ditch would empty into the roadside trench.  Even a former city boy like me knows the ditch has to go under the stone wall, not over it or through it.  I suppose it had been a sturdy stone wall in the distant past, but now it is rather flimsy, so I think I will be able to snake the drain pipe under it before Irene arrives.

Ah, ha! When I bought the house a few years ago, the seller didn't tell me there was a stone path leading to the steps of  the deck hidden under the topsoil. The slate stepping stones are now covered by grass, weeds and moss.  I found a bit of this abandoned walkway when I tried to re-route the trench around the boulders.  Maybe, after Irene passes, I will dig up the old walkway and make it nice once again.  In the meantime, with Irene arriving shortly, I focused on the trench for the downspout, weaving it around the prehistoric rocks and the slick slate toward the roadside trench.

After four hours of work, the pick axe had become rather heavy and repeatedly hitting the obstinate boulders had dulled the sharp end.  I hadn't gotten that far with the trench, about ten feet long, I'd say, and not deep or wide enough to put down the Item 4 and the plastic drain pipe I bought at the hardware store.  Today's rainstorm, which turned my sad little trench to a gloppy, meandering  Amazon of mud, isn't part of Irene, it's just your average GNC mountaintop sheets of rain.

When I get up tomorrow, I'm going to finish the trench.  But tonight, I'm running a hot bath filled with two pounds of epsom salt.  Irene had better show up with a few friends and stay for the weekend.