Well, my plans for a quiet 4th of July afternoon at the computer were rather rudely interrupted. Our teaser of a monsoon season decided to let loose on drought-parched Tucson, Arizona. Loud thunder. Lots of lightning. Photo op…
The sight of a flood near my front porch did not fill me with joy. But the prospect of going out in the rain to do something about it was even less appealing.
So, I waited until our nice, sunny weather, which was back in full force on Saturday. I figured that a trench leading down to that big water harvesting basin would solve the flooding problem. Here’s step one, shaping the trench. All I did was rake some mulch aside…
Next job was to line the bottom of the trench with some crushed rock. I’m hoping that this lining will reduce or eliminate erosion. Here’s some crushed rock in my back yard, waiting to be called to duty…
After I raked the mulch back over the new trench, I returned to the back yard to focus on that tiny patio that I’ve been meaning to build for, oh, a year. The reason for the procrastination was that I was waiting for a good rain to soften the ground. Wish granted on the 4th of July.
Part of the joy of masonry is tweaking your work. And tweaking it some more. Let’s just say that the patio building wasn’t a speedy project…
All done!
The monsoon bestowed .40″ of rain on my place for the 4th of July. Nothing since. So I’m back to trash-talking the thunderclouds in hopes that they’ll spit some rain down on me.