The past few days have been glorious . Why is that , you take ? Because the three week prior to that brought rain , pelting and nothing but rain . When your habitation is placed in the middle of a hill , rain can be a scarey thing — not so much in the “ Oh honey , my basement is going to glut ” way of life ( woohoo elevation ! ) , but more in the “ Oh dear , my railway yard is eroding ” elbow room .
The latter concept I have no experience with . Coming from the flat suburbs of Central Ohio , I ’ve never had to take care of cragged land , let alone deal with the mess of the rainfall carving out a muddy creek the right way by my back door . When the urine form the gully - washer ( that ’s what the local folks call sudden operose rains ) travels down from the top of the pitcher’s mound along the walking path from our field to our house , it amass impulse over the pack together soil , causing problem for our yard and driveway . This is no adept if we someday desire a play arena near the planetary house for our little one — or , you know , keep the morphologic wholeness of our hills .
Thankfully , Mr. B is an technologist and has crafted an ingenious plan for diverting water at the top of the hill in a dissimilar commission down the J. J. Hill . Plus , we have coolheaded friends who do things like erosion control for a living to give us additional guidance . As we slowly work to prevent corrosion problems , here are some things we plan to hear .
1. French Drain
Using some PVC pipe we find under our shed , Mr. B has invent a plan for instal a French drainage . He drill holes in the down - facing part of the organ pipe . We ’ll compass a oceanic abyss to accommodate it , and then fence in the pipe with gravel . When it rains hard enough , the water will fill up in the crushed rock channel and insert the piping through the holes . We’ll situate the Gallic drain uphill from the house , nearly vertical to the pitcher’s mound , to maximize the amount of water to be intercept and directed away from the eroding area below .
We ’re still adjudicate whether to dig this trench by deal or rent equipment to avail us , but we consider this will be huge in preventing more erosion trouble .
2. Side Channels
In the meantime , Mr. B has started digging minuscule diversion ditch along the side of the path , perpendicular to the water flow . Our erosion - ascendence extraordinaire recommended placing them before and after any concave area in our walking way of life where water supply seems to pool up , hinting that water system is chip at a flow . As Mr. B digs these side TV channel , he take aim to build up up a modest shoulder along the downward boundary using stain or rocks to aid guide the pee flow .
3. Natural Filters
In addition to our wearing yard , we have some problem along our drive with flowing ( read : gush ) water pass over out the gravel and basically causing potholes . Unlike the water streaming down the driveway , these problems are stimulate by Creek that pass perpendicularly under the drive through culvert . When a heavy rain collision , the culvert ca n’t always handle the volume and water run over the top . To decrease the vigour of the flow and also act as a filter to help preclude choked culverts , our friend recommended planting bush or thoughtfully localize downed log or large rock ‘n’ roll upstream .
While Mr. B is the engineer genius behind fixing much of our erosion trouble , this is where my creative thinking kicks in . The University of Kentucky extension has put outa papersuggesting native species to use in buffer zones in our country . While this wo n’t be a polisher geographical zone per se , I thought it would be a good position to set out research into what we might add to the landscape painting .
Slow But Steady
Sometimes it seems like we ’ve had to tackle a lot of boring problems , like corrosion , before we ’ve had a chance to get into the play of farming . I have to cue myself that these projects are n’t boring at all . We ’ve inserted ourselves into nature , and Mother Nature has a hard personality . Through projection like this , we get to learn how she make and how we fit into that system .
The land always has something to teach us . We ’re not here just to appropriate it — to grow our tomato and lift our crybaby and move on — we’re here to live alongside the wild . It ’s here to support us if we take care of it , and that ’s not a process that happens in one twelvemonth or five twelvemonth or 25 years . It happen over the course of a lifespan . We ’ll get to the wizard part of land soon enough , and when I get cross over the task that seem to dissemble as obstacles to our main end , I cue myself that we ’re in this for the long haul .
