Reject climate change despair. We don’t control much beyond ourselves and half the time not even that. We’re just a bunch of pixels in the end.
The bad news is: nothing lasts. The good news is: nothing lasts.
I’ve been taking welding and soldering classes in order to make water storage and collection that doubles as art. I took soldering and welding classes at Snow Farm. Made a trellis for a clematis (‘Niobe‘).
I’m working on self-sustaining rainwater management and erosion control in general–that will probably be my main focus next summer too.
First, we need a water management solution for the pollinator garden at the base of the hill by the garage. The soil is heavily impacted, and before the pollinator garden was planted the water ran straight down the driveway. The new bed has been an improvement, but water has been running downhill through that soil for decades and there isn’t much organic matter to hold on to water.
This is the year we get grass established, but it will need a variety of solutions. It’s the primary path between the front yard and back yard. It has to remain wide enough for a truck to get through if we need tree work (or anything else) in the backyard. The only other access point runs over the septic system.
I’m playing with ways to handle the gutter run off (please marvel at the elegance):
Given all that, I’ll likely start with a rain garden built with my new best friend, the pick axe.
After that I’m building a lotus sculpture to function as a collection point when it rains, and it will sit on top off an existing pot I have that I’m estimating holds twenty gallons. Then drill a spout in it, set the whole thing in the middle of one of the lower part sun beds where it will be appreciated. I would share the design spec but it looks like a six-year-old drew it. In any case, that will allow for stored water in dry times and avoid use of the hose as much as possible.
I plan to use my pal the pitchfork to carve dry riverbeds throughout the landscape to route water from places where it uselessly pools or runs off into areas where it will do some good. There’s a long slope where a hundred foot border curves downhill, and I’m experimenting with fishscale swales dug out every ten feet along the single long swale along the edge. It’s an effort to sustain the plantings in the dry border. I’m also trying out a series of overlapping flagstones along the scale edges supported by 18″ rebar (below). The rebar is inelegant and out of place, so it needs to be re-placed (it probably hit a rock) and tapped fully in, then hidden by a second piece of flagstone behind it. Or just soil, for that matter.
It’s awkward and a work in progress but it’s motion and not paralysis and that is an act of optimism. Plus, a partial idea is better than no idea:
