Tag Archives: drought

Rain, lilies, and tiny frogs

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White water lily blooming in pond.

We finally got two solid rain storms this past week after a long drought. What a relief! And now four very tiny frogs have appeared in the pond. (I don’t know what happened to the one we had before that was a little bigger.) A few days ago, this new water lily flower started blooming, and today when I went out to see it, it had disappeared. But I found three of the tiny frogs perched on lily pads! The fourth was on the other side of the pond on a rock. I didn’t look too closely under the water to investigate the missing flower, so as not to scare the frogs.

But slowly I sat down near the edge of the pond and watched for a while. A dragonfly came and perched on blue flag iris leaves. The frogs stayed on their pads.

Tiny frog on a lily pad
Second tiny frog on another lily pad

Taking close-up photos makes the frogs appear larger than they really are. They are only about an inch long nose to backside. I wonder if maybe it was the rain that enabled these small frogs to travel from some other place to our little pond? I feel refreshed by the rain too. Cool nights with windows open, listening to the dark sounds. Lovely.

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To Be of Use

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Chipmunk drinking at the pond

Yesterday morning, I was sitting next to the pond, writing in my journal. After I’d been there, and quiet for a long time, this chipmunk approached the other side of the pond, climbed down the rocks and took long drinks of water. After a couple minutes, it quickly climbed back up the rocks and ran back into the field behind.

If you’ve been following my posts recently, you know that I’ve been dealing with chronic illness causing me to have much less energy this summer. So my relationship with the garden has changed. It has been less purposeful and project oriented, and more, “Let’s see what the yard wants to do this season.” To listen more, to do less, to observe more, to try less–and I’ve learned so much, actually.

It’s true that we had already done a lot to shape the yard–we planted many fruit trees and bushes, let wildflowers grow, planted perennials, pulled invasives, and created the pond last year. Some of the plants that were in the pond didn’t survive the winter, and I did add a few more this spring. But it wasn’t enough to prevent algae from flourishing. So periodically, I get inspired to pull out as much as I can. But I’ve also noticed that bees love to perch on the algae, to get a drink of water presumably. (There is always enough algae left for them.) It gives me gratitude to know that this pond, imperfect though it is, has been of use to these creatures in a drought-burdened summer.

Bees on green algae

Lately, my old nemesis the squirrel has come back to start eating peaches. But since I was doing so much less to nurture the peach tree–less holistic sprays, less thinning of peaches, and so on–and since I had somewhat resigned myself to having no peaches after last year, I haven’t been stressed out about that. And the squirrel or squirrels seem more mellow as well. The peaches are actually very crowded together, and every couple days, I twist off a few tightly squeezed ones, even though they are not ripe yet, to make room for the others to grow bigger. I’ve put a few on window sills in the house to see if they will ripen. I tell myself the squirrel is also thinning the peaches. We are collaborators, rather than enemies. Who knows, maybe there will be enough for all of us?

Squirrel sitting on a branch in the peach tree nibbling on a green peach.

In a world with so many horrors that I can do nothing to stop, or even to protest, I am grateful to be of use to these small companions who share our back yard with us.

[And thanks to Marge Piercy‘s poem, To Be of Use, for its evocative and helpful title.]

Too much water, too little water

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I have been thinking about the flooding in Houston, and all the other devastating ways the planet is adapting to our carbon in the air, with changing weather patterns, intense storms, different water patterns.  Thankfully, my sister and other family members in the Houston area are safe.  Meanwhile, we have drought here in Maine.  It hasn’t rained for over ten days. I don’t have answers for what to do about the new reality of flooding in our land, but I thought I could talk about what we are doing to address drought here in Maine.

So, last week, we were able to finish the rest of our rain barrels!   One of the useful aspects of rain barrels is to preserve water in the landscape to be able to weather the ups and downs of water flow.  We now have rain barrels gathering the run-off from each roof on our land.

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The final rain barrel is finished!

Measure the downspoutI want to post about the learning session that Dave led on the 23rd to finish our rain barrels and teach a few of us more about how to install rain barrels.  I will talk today about how to attach the barrels to the downspouts of our gutters.  Once the rain barrels themselves are positioned, you can measure and mark the downspout about 8 to 12″ above the top of the barrel.

Unscrew the downspout attachment

 

 

Then remove the downspout by unscrewing the fastening screws on the wall and to the gutter.  Once those are unfastened, you can pull the vertical downspout apart from the connectors to the gutter.

Unscrew the connector

 

 

The fun part is cutting the downspout itself to the right length with tin snips, using both right-handed and left-handed snips.  (Right handed are red-handled, and left are green.) The basic idea is to mark the downspout with a pencil line all around, and be aware of the part you are going to keep, and the other part which will not be part of the finished downspout (the scrap side–but you can save it for other uses.)  Then punch a hole with the point of the snips near your line, but in the scrap side, and start cutting around the marked line.  But, also, about an inch further into the scrap side, you start another cut, so that you can work both those cuts at the same time.  It makes it easier to go round the downspout.  If you are right-handed, you use the right hand snip for your “good” cut, and the other snip for the helping cut.  This picture shows a left-handed person making the good cut.  As you go around the pipe you can cut off that little strip so it doesn’t get in your way.Cutting the downspout

Once the downspout is cut, you reattached it to the gutter, and reattach the screws, or make new ones as needed to attach it to the wall.  Then, attach a plastic downspout extension piece that you can buy at a hardware store in large or small sizes, and position it to end over your rain barrel  (see first picture).  Hurray!