My plan is to sink a 40 gallon barrel into the ground to collect "flood" waters. This is not about standing or flowing water; it's about a constant state of GOO in my entire yard, like my own personal tar pit. I keep thinking that if I could talk the water out of the dirt, and if that reclaimed water would go into that little tank, the actual dirt in my yard would have a chance to dry out, and I'd also have a little reservoir, all courtesy of The Asshat from whose yard the muck emanates. I would drill holes in that tank about every six inches, wrap the tank in garden cloth as a sort of filter, sink it, and then pour sand down the area between the dirt and the tank. Then, because nature is such a miracle, water would dribble into the tank, reasonably clean. Yes, The Asshat is probably using chemicals galore, but I'm thinking I could handle that pretty well with just a few cattails.
No, not that kind!
And then...I remembered septic systems, in which pipes full of holes disperse water into the ground along their tracks.
Disperse water out of little holes. OUT OF little holes. Am I accidentally designing a tank that will not collect water but in fact deploy it?
Oy. I never should have broken up with that engineer fellow. Don't tell him I said that.
And then there is that other miracle, the French drain.
According to one site, "A French Drain is a perforated pipe surrounded by gravel. It is used to collect water from a low spot in the yard. The pipe is usually 4″ Perforated (holes or slotted) and is encased in 3/4 inch washed stone."
My question is...how do the little holes know if you want water to go into them or out of them? Simply because of which side of them water is on? So in other words, if the wet ground fills up my tank, and then the ground dries up nicely, the water will then obediently go back out the holes again?
Oh man. Mrs Bernard, wherever you are, you were right. I should have paid attention in class even though I was so sure I'd never use any of that math crap in the real world. Once again, teachers have proven that teenagers are in fact stupid. D'oh! And then they turn into stupid old ladies!
I think I might have to adjust my plans. Maybe I should only drill holes in the barrel around the very top area, and not try to collect water from its entire length. That way water would come in off the top six inches or so of the soil and collect in the rest of the barrel, without being tempted to disperse all that it had collected. I wonder if I really need to worry about what is going on under six inches of topsoil. I mean, I guess I have to worry about deeper water if there is a far underground leak somewhere, but would that water really go upwards if there was too much of it? I don't think so, unless there is serious drainage restriction.
Consider this. If I have a flower pot with no hole, all the dirt will be floating in the excess water, so in fact there'll be standing water. But on the other hand, if I have a flower pot with a normal hole and saucer, and I water the bejeebers out of it, the water will go down and overflow over the saucer, not over the top of the pot, and that is what water would rather do than going back up. So the question is...do I have any drainage in my yard? Who the hell knows. I probably have as much drainage as anybody in this clay-bottomed town. And does this mean that I should only worry about the top part? After all...that's the part that gets all over my dogs and carpeting anyhow.
Maybe if I am only collecting water off the top of the soil, I don't have to dig to China. Maybe, in fact, I should just use the black plastic "pond" lying in the pile of junk in my side yard...aw jeeze, that thing may not be terribly deep, but it sure is wide.
As Roseanne Roseannadanna would say, "It's always somethin."
Red Chard seedlings are up! Yay!
Also....here are my homemade sourdough tortillas (whole wheat with sunflower oil)
Also....here are my homemade sourdough tortillas (whole wheat with sunflower oil)
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