And Then the Rains Came

To Central Texas

After recently spending an inordinate amount of 

money, time, physical and mental energy to 

build a new house it's gratifying to experience how well the design team met my needs and desires.

(One of two 'dry' creek beds performing it's function of holding rainwater on the 

site as long as possible, allowing water to percolate down into the soil rather than

running off into the storm sewer.)

I could fill an entire Gratitude Journal entry on how well the house and yard functions during severe weather, everything from the extreme drought last summer to the enormous rain and high winds of this spring.

Excess water (over 5 inches of rain last night) will still overflow the catchment system and go into the storm sewer.  A good bit of it, however, remains on site until the soil is able to absorb it, thus replenishing the ground water system.

(second 'dry' creek bed on the other side of the house)

The 10,000 gallon rainwater collection tank is now filled to overflowing.  The water is used for

landscape watering but the surprise is that even with a xeriscape, drought tolerant planting design, the  trees and planting beds still use quite a bit of water.  One cycle of the sprinkler system can take the water level down a foot.

Thanks to a good foundation and site grading the standing water never gets near the top of the foundation, unlike my previous house where poor site grading led to interior water damage and necessitated a regrading of the entire backyard to solve the problem.  If only builders and developers understood that owners would much rather pay more upfront for a well designed house than to incur unexpected expenses later to fix problems due to poor or cheap design decisions. 

The standing water stayed well below the patio and back porch.

Thanks to preventive maintenance by the landscape crew, the orange shade sail stayed securely attached during our high winds.  Even "Bliss" made it through, needing only a minor reattachment of the 'L' this morning.

Grateful Thoughts

* Most of the standing water has been absorbed by now.

* The house didn't leak.

* No tornadoes came.

* No hail damaged the solar panels.

* No yard or house damage: no falling limbs, no yard

furniture tossed about.

I feel like the third little pig, who built his house out of rock.  Thank you, Lord, for things that work!

P.S.  The rain and wind didn't short out or damage any of the fun stuff either.