High Water

Greetings all who peruse this page. It is August 10, and at the moment it is sunny, but severe storms are in the forecast for later in the day. The past week has been crazy as as the weather goes, with severe downpours @ home and in Vermont, including tornado warnings- yes tornado in CT. Reading the highlights from the Caledonian Record- the local Vermont newspaper- flash flooding has caused some severe issues up there as well. I spoke with some friends earlier in the week who summer in New Hampshire, and they told me how this has been the wettest summer they remember in the longest time.

I really believe this to be true, and in reading the paper, it appears so. From the Caledonian Record:

" At least 1.82 inches fell Wednesday morning and some places up to 3 inches fell"

"So far this month we've gotten 3.52 inches of rain, and the average rainfall for the month of August is 4.23 inches. So far, the total rainfall for the summer months (June, July, August) is 18.06 inches, when normally, this would be 11.99 inches."

Why am I babbling on about rainfall you may ask? Well rainfall directly impacts land clearing. I received a call early this week, and was informed there was quite a bit more water showing up than originally thought, and we needed to modify the original plan a bit, and construct a drainage swale to help run off the water, and allow the property to dry up. So of course I agreed. I received another call on Friday, and was told everything was set except for the seeding, and this would have to wait until things dried up a bit, and that it has been wetter up there than anyone can remember in a long time.

Originally, I wasn't going to go up this weekend, but plans changed late Friday so we made the early morning trek up to view the final land clearing/excavation/drainage installation. Again it started off very foggy on the way up, we passed what was later announced as a fatal car crash in Plainville, and a big rig rollover into center median near the Mass/VT border. finally arriving, weather clearing for nice pictures, and a light breeze blowing.

So immediately we noticed a new swale of the eastern side of the property, and water was running down, albeit slowly. As we walked the perimeter, first in a southerly then westerly direction, the swale increased in size and the water in volume.

Toward the western end water was coming from a drainage area near the septic, as well as the wet area we had known about. Now we are starting to wonder if there is a spring or artesian well in this area. But there was enough water running from here that you could actually hear it bubbling like a brook.



The water was then diverted northerly to drain out to the existing culvert in front. so in a sense, we now have a "moat" around the perimeter of the cleared area. Guess my next option would be to look to build a castle :-)

Well, hopefully the crazy amount of rain will slow down, and we can get grass growing soon, the property will dry up, and we can start looking at next steps, like building something, whether a small home or at least a garage for now. Stay tuned-and don't throw away those inner tubes yet-