Spring Blowout

We've had a series of somewhat nasty storms recently.  Last night was not as bad (thankfully) as I had anticipated, though we did get a nice slug of rain.  Last week was another story.  I woke to rain and thunder at about 8:00 in the morning.  After looking at a radar loop I decided that there was probably going to be some problems with what looked like too much rain coming in a very short time.  I ran out to the barn to feed in a relative lull in the rainfall and found water coming in a place that is not normally wet.  I peaked out and found the gutter to be spilling over which meant the downspout was plugged.  I retrieved the ladder from the shed so I could quickly clean out the gutter.  Of course at this point the lighting became worse.  What could happen?  Standing on an aluminum and fiberglass ladder, holding on to an aluminum gutter filled with water attached to a barn constructed out of a steel frame.  Really? Meh.  No big deal.

The gutter cleaned and doing it's job I turned my attention to the basement.  Yep. Water coming in through the foundation under the septic pipe.  Outside I found water piling up in the stone pebble patio, so I dug a trench through the middle of it and diverted a majority of the water away.  The flow into the basement stopped almost immediately.  WHEW!  Only took three old bath towels to clean up the mess.  Had I not been home it would have been a mess.  I tuned my scanner to the town's public safety frequencies and heard the usual broadcasts of streets being flooded in the same areas, but much higher than normal.  We had about 5 inches of rain in a very short time which caused the problem.  Luckily The Cape was formed basically by a glacier taking a big dump and then retreating, so our soils are very sandy and drain off quickly.

In the photo is the trench I dug through the patio.

Mrs and I put the screens back in the windows today and reinstalled a screen door.  It was nice to get the wind blowing through and some fresh air into the place.

Lots going on in the yard including what we're hoping will be a successful nesting attempt by a pair of Eastern bluebirds that appear to be seriously interested in using one of our boxes.

More to come.