Monsoooooooon!

I was whining about not getting much rain at LMMM. I wanted the rain because we need it and because we needed to see how well the latest round of grading was going to work at moving the water around the house. Yesterday, I got my chance in a classic example of "be careful what you wish for".

It rained very hard for very long. Typically this time of year the rain is heavy in scattered storms around the area. Yesterday our area was the main event, complete with flash flood warnings. Of course I had to take some pictures.

The storm started about 4:30 or so. It had wind and some thunder along with the rain, but not the huge number of lightning flashes we'd had in the weeks earlier, all of which produced no measurable precipitation here. Yesterday it was definitely measurable.

I went out about noon today to take some dry pictures to contrast with the wet ones, and to see the way the water flowed on the land and in the street.

This is looking out the front door at the house to the east. Clicking on the pictures will help you see the actual rain and the water flowing in many of these pics.

This is our normal puddle place in front of the garage and shop doors. It came so hard and so fast that you'd swear we never had any additional grading done.

Here the water is coming from the sky and down our driveway. Some of it is from the road and some is coming off the slight hill to the east.

This shows it running off from the east. We got no water coming over the retaining wall, so we may need to extend it toward the road.

This is the driveway with the water rushing into the bypass area on the south side of the house. Those little stakes and tape define a planting area.

Now we shift to the back of the house. There are 5 runoff crickets on this part of the house roof. They take the water to the top of the back porch roof. Then it shoots off into the west yard. We are seriously thinking about guttering this roof and taking the water into another rain barrel. It probably would've almost filled up just from yesterday. Here you can see 2 of the runoff areas, one on either side of the post.

This is a shot of the one on the right in the picture above and the 2 others to the north.

Here you can see what's already on the ground and where these streams of water are hitting.

I took this picture just to get a good shot of the sky.

These are some of the places where that water digs into the ground and erodes it. If we do nothing else with our landscaping, we will have to do something about this. It's eroding back to the edge of the porch and compromising it.

These pictures were taken today. You can see the partly cloudy sky with a downpour in the distance.

This flow is into the Mexican garden.

Now back to the front driveway. I was wondering if the trench our neighbor dug was helping or not. In this area, it did until it filled up. This is running down the side of the retaining wall.

We weren't supposed to get this puddling anymore. Maybe we will need the Ark next door.

This shows water coming out of the trench and into the runoff area on the north side of the house. Our Ark neighbors also have some water flowing through a shallower trench on their property.

This is coming off their land into the trench, but most of the water that goes into it comes from the land to the east.

This is a picture looking from the open east shop door to the south.

Here's what it looked like by noon today. It's mostly dry, but wouldn't be if we had more rain. These are issues that will have to be dealt with more delicately if we have the driveway graveled or paved.

Here you can see where water flowed into the driveway from the east.

This shows another pathway of water from the east.

This was the best shot I could get from inside of the water flowing down the street. It's mostly on our side. This is at our driveway.

Here's what that looked like today. When we first signed up for the house, we were told we would have to put a culvert here. Then the county decided we didn't need it. I think we may after all.

This is the mesquite on the east side of the driveway. You can see how the water pooled there.

This is looking west along the street. The water took the path next to our property.

I had to step over to the other side of the road to take a picture. It is totally torn up. I'm sure the county will be around soon...

The water cuts in a bit here at this prickly pear. We may be losing some of our lot.

This is from that prickly pear looking back east. The erosion is pretty bad.

This is back on our land south west of the house. This is actually right where the landscaper has a half-circle seating area with a fire pit. I don't think so.

This is the same area somewhat dry today.

Now we go back to the rain barrels on the north side of the house. The grading did help the water to channel through here quite well. We will need to line this with rock to slow it down a bit.

Here it is from the west side of the house. As you can see, some of the runoff is from our Ark neighbor.

The pop-up valve on the west rain barrel is working well. It must be full. The other one didn't pop up at all.

This is the water flow between our houses. A couple of years ago it was much worse than this, so the channeling must be helping. I need to plant some water loving trees here -- willows or mesquites.

This is the west driveway from the shop.

This is about where the natural open space begins.

This is the pop-up valve and the channel today.

And this is the area between the houses.

We usually get damage at the end of the west driveway when it rains, and yesterday was no exception.

This may not look like much, but it's a rut at least 6" deep.

I took lots of pictures through the windows with water on them. This was my favorite. It's the only one that has the wall color reflecting in the drops.

So this is not the dry heat part of the year. I think we can expect water like this once a year. It's not as bad as cows on hills near Centralia or midwest flooding, but I noticed our across the street neighbor got home at least 1/2 later than normal on Friday. She must've had to wait for a wash to clear.

Yardwork, Wildflowers & Wildlife -- Summer 2010

After the landscape plan and all our noodling around in our heads, the first phase of making the plan become a reality had to be clearing the area immediately around our house. It was not terribly bad, but there were piles of desert debris from the grading for our house and from some time in the past. There was lots of mistletoe that needed to be removed from the trees and the trees needed to be pruned up to look like trees rather than bushes. Dead bushes needed to be removed along with dead and dying prickly pear and cholla.

We got a tiny start on that in the spring, but neither of us has the energy, the tools or the knowledge to do it all. Trout mostly worried about how you get rid of the stuff after you prune. I learned how and that comes later.

We knew that it should cost about $1000 to do all this, and it did. The folks that did the work for us, Candy's Yard, live out here and I think they did a great job. In fact they did more than I originally expected. I suspect that we will use them again sometime in the future. It took about 100 work hours to do all this.

There are lots of pictures here. I tried to get before and after shots, but they aren't exact. They should be good enough for you to get the idea, though. So let's get started.

Entrance from the road before...

...and after.

I have no before pictures of this ditch along the south side of the house. The bush is a type of acacia. Trout wanted to shape it like a ball, but the newspaper person managed to run into it and break some of the trunks, so it got pruned as good as could be done considering that. We are facing west here.

This is the east side of the driveway. That's a small native mesquite in the foreground. It will grow much larger if it gets water. The runoff has created kind of a well around it, so that should happen. Unlike palo verdes, mesquites like to get their feet wet and a lot of water won't kill them. If palo verdes get lots of water, they die.

Utility easement east of the house before...

...and after. You can see a couple of posts sticking up in the before picture. That's the actual property line. We can plant to the left of it, but we have to accept that whatever goes in there might be ripped up if someone needs to get to the underground utilities in this area.

Rock retaining wall on the east side of the house before...

...and after. The truck you see exiting the driveway is the Candy's Yard vehicle.

Rain barrels on the north side of the house before...

...and after. You can't even see through the thick, mistletoe-laden palo verde on the left in the before picture. The rebar with the orange top is the property line with our nearest neighbors. The ditch is to help with runoff during heavy rains.

Heading back out toward the road (south), this is the entrance area looking south from the north before...

...and after. They took out some dead prickly pear and some tree trunks and limbs that had been lying there for who knows how long.

South side of the house facing west before. That palo verde on the left looks so thick because of the heavy load of mistletoe.

That "blue" cactus is from house paint. It turned out this this one was dying due to grubs. It was all black at the base.

Here's the after. It looks like a road down the side of the house, but it is really a drainage feature. We will see if it works if we ever get any rain.

This is the same drainage area before from the west side of the house. You can see the tire tracks from the backhoe.

This is the after and a good example of the yard folks doing something I didn't expect. They raked and worked over this area (and many others) so well that most of the abrupt dirt edges are now smooth.

Now we start around the house with pictures from the road. This is the south side of the house before...

...and after.

Before (note the piles of dead prickly pear and the dying cholla)...

...and after.

This is a before close up of that cluster of foliage that includes the blue cactus. Along with it there is a good sized Mormon tea, a palo verde and a fairy duster.

This is after. I'm not fond of fairy duster and wouldn't plant one, but I'll take the wild one (little scrawny looking thing in the foreground) as long as I can stand it.

This is what it looked like when it bloomed this year. Maybe it will grow more and be pretty next spring.

This is an after overall view of the south side of the house. Getting rid of so much debris really helps me to visualize where the fence walls will go.

You may remember that 30% of the land is in Natural Open Space (NOS). This is the edge of that from the road before the cleanup.

This is after. The line runs between the palo verde on the left and the mesquite on the right.

This is another shot mostly showing the area we can work on to the right of the mesquite.

This is a before picture from the road toward the southwest side of the house. There's actually evidence of vehicles driving into this property through these two chollas.

And here's the after.

We have several chollas on the lot. They amazingly provide good habitat for birds. You can tell by the nest styles that these are two different birds in these two chollas. They are the ones on either side of the picture.

This is the mesquite we often watch right outside our living room. We see birds, ground squirrels, lizards, rabbits etc.using it for shelter and food. This before picture shows all the debris and dead stuff below it.

And this is after from two angles. By the way, I'm still seeing wildlife around it.

This is facing southwest from our back porch. Before...

...and after.

Facing west from the porch before...

...and after.

Facing northwest before...

...and after.

When I first saw this little sheltered area, I immediately envisioned a little Mexican style garden with a table in the middle. In fact, all our garden will be pretty Mexican in style. These are two before pictures. Note the white drainfield pipe in the right of the pictures.

Here's the after.

Candy's Yard left that clump of grass at the base of the palo verde on the right for a reason. Here's mama quail sitting on her eggs. She's well-camouflaged, eh?

Here are the eggs.

This nest was also left in a palo verde along the west driveway. At first I thought it was mistletoe.

And here's how we would get rid of debris in the future. It's called Mini-Rolloff. They deliver a small dumpster like this. Leave it for 10 days and then pick it up. The cost is $202 for the delivery, pickup, taking it to the dump and 1 ton of contents. If it goes over a ton, you have to pay extra. It seems like a bargain to me. You can see I took this picture when it was ready for pickup.

Remember that early picture with the rain barrels? This is the other side of the utility easement betwen us and our north neighbors. The short bush with the yellow flowers to the left is exactly on our property line. I asked them if they wanted it out or pruned like a tree. They opted for pruned like a tree.

So here's how it looks now. The thick palo verdes on the left are on their property. The pruned and now mistletoe-less one on the right is on ours.

We had a lot of yard debris already on the ground on the west side of the house. Note those white drainfield pipes again in this before.

And this is the after. The west driveway is to the right of these pictures.

And this is a final picture of the west driveway before...

...and after. Fortunately, we did not have to grade in this driveway. It was an old road on the ranch land from long before the development was designed and the county roads were put in.

I know what you're thinking. It looks so bare now. These are some pictures of the natural flora from this spring. Believe me, it and the grasses will come back. That Mexican garden area was pretty clear 3 years ago. And I do intend to plant lots of native wildflowers this fall.

This prickly pear is not native to our land. It's from a plant Joan had at her house. Most prickly pear flowers are yellow, but I loved this so much, I pruned her plant (she couldn't even tell I did it) and planted a bunch of paddles in 2 different places. So far they have all survived and are growing. This is one of the many that bloomed after I planted them.

No LMMM update would be complete without animal pictures. This is a cottontail in the west driveway close to the road.

And I got these shots just last night at dusk. We usually see only one jack rabbit at a time. Lately I've been seeing 2, but this looked like a family to me. This is technically not on our land, but the fern-like plant in the foreground is a Mexican bird of paradise I recently planted, so close enough.

I'm sure this is mom.

I think this is a playful teenager running into the picture. It's too small to be an adult.

At first I didn't see where it went. Is this it or another one with mom? You can only see the extra ears to the left. I didn't even see them until I loaded the picture onto my computer.

I thought, wow, cool, there are 2 of them. Here's where the other one went.

Hmmm? I guess that one wasn't alone. Note the mesquite beans on the tree. That's a favorite food for lots of wildlife around here.

I loved this 4 ears picture.

But wait, there are 6 ears.

These guys are young. I've never seen a real baby jack rabbit. They probably stay underground a long time in this area like the baby cottontails do. Forget about the coyotes. They also have to worry about hawks, owls, rattlesnakes etc. when they are little.

And mom remains vigilant.

That's it for this post. I probably should have spent the time it took to do this on sewing curtains, but this is more likely to get lost in the shuffle than that.