Raining Cats and Dogs

Yesterday it just poured. It rained so hard for a couple minutes that I could not see the house across the street from the office window. Amazing. When the deluge let up, I went out to check the defenses.

This is the percolation basin, after an hour of draining. When I peeked at it through the window, the whole lower level was full, but that was when it was still pouring out.

For some perspective, here is the strawberry bed, which is above the percolation basin. Part of why everything was so flooded was that the emergency overflow on the water tank had triggered and the sprinklers had basically been running all night and day.

In fact, they had not been able to keep up with the flow of water from the sump. The tank was overflowing dramatically, and a large lake of water sat alongside the house.

We now recognize the sound of the tank overflowing -- a splashing sound right outside the bathroom. The cure is to disconnect the hose from the sump and run it out into the yard. When the tank has been run down a bit by the system, we can turn off the irrigation system until the rain dies down.

It's a little involved right now -- we do need to come up with a better overflow system that is more failsafe. But there's no real danger involved in it not working for 24 hours, so there hasn't been a pressing need.

Anyway, the trees are liking the rain. Even with high winds that whipped water through the sides of the roof and into our dining room (we have no roof leaks, but there is that gap where the wooden gutters rotted away), the blossoms on the apricot are intact:

And the nectarines seem to be doing well, too. Though I'm getting a little tired of having to go out and spray them with copper every other day after the rain washes the previous application off.

Technorati Tags: automation, flooding, flowers, fruit, irrigation, rain, roof, trees, water, weather

posted by ayse on 03/04/10