RDF/RSS Feed
Atom FeedLast night we got another three inches of rain.
This morning the septic tank had filled up. Flushing the toilets is out of the question. So is dishwashing. So we’re snacking. Lightly. We do have access to a house that’s on the city sewer system, but…I’d rather have a working toilet inside the house, modern wimp that I am.
My measure for “enough rain for now” has been reached. There’s running water in the front yard, back yard, horse lots–the French drains Richard put in have kept the barn interior dry, but everything else is glittering in the afternoon sun with running water. The old well down the horse lot has three inches of “head” inside its casing and is leaking water freely around it. The hand-dug well near the barn (only about 8 feet deep) is full, and this morning was overflowing. So the ground water is down maybe an inch. We need it down a foot.
The horses are Not Thrilled to be locked into the barn and little barn lot (the little barn lot on the south side is puddly…but the south horse lot is SO green!
Mac and Illusion try to stay on the dry ground and demand more food.
They think Richard’s headed for the feed room…
Comment by elizabeth — October 23, 2009 @ 6:40 pm
And 24 hours later, toilets are working again. Phone is not. Horses have been trimmed, standing on the dryest part of their very wet pen. (They’re penned in the barn lot when it’s this wet, to save the grass in the ~1 acre horse lots. In fact, right now they’re penned in the south barn lot…that gives them the barn and a 40×40 space. The north barn lot is a sucking mudhole at the moment, having had runoff from the back yard across it.)
My mood improves a lot when the tile field isn’t flooded and the toilets work.
Comment by AnnMCN — October 24, 2009 @ 6:25 pm
The septic tank problem sounds like your ground water has filled up. Will it subside as quickly?
Here in Georgia, we’ve had our own drought to flood cycle this past month or two, and the flooding seems (to me) to be more likely to happen when the rain cannot soak in, whether it’s due to overmuch paving or ground that’s very hard and dry.
Comment by elizabeth — October 24, 2009 @ 11:01 pm
Definitely compacted ground, paved ground, or ground that’s baked by drought and sun do cause more runoff.
However, in this instance the ground did its fast runoff-thing last month when the rains began, and the problem now is that the ground is full to the brim–the sponge is not a hard dry sponge that can’t absorb water, but a sponge that’s taken in all it can. Hence the wells (fed from underground) being full to ground level.