the beginnings of our water project

This is the beginning of our water project.  Our plan has been finalized.  We are going to run 150 feet of 3/4 inch PVC pipe through the grove.  It will be attached with hose to the faucet on the house or the hydrant near the well.  It will attach to hose on the other end which will then be used to water the garden.  The PVC will go through the grove at an angle, it will have an upright at each end that will be attached to a fence post to make it easier to attach the hoses and to keep the ends out of the reach of the mower.  I teased Dad about putting a birdhouse on the fence post but I am thinking it would be cute.  I was also thinking that it would be a place to hang a hose holder to wind the hose up out of the way for mowing.  there will be a shut off on the far end so that there is not water running on the ground while you walk around the grove to get to the hose. 

The reason that the project is at this point is that when Dad picked up the PVC there were not enough supplies at the store.  Because there were not any 20 foot pipes he bought 10 footers and then we needed twice as many of the connectors and there weren't enough of those either.  So we glued together what we had and he has now purchased the rest of the parts  while at the lake.  On Monday, we will glue the rest together and thread it through the grove. 

In the meantime Mother Nature has been taking care of the watering.  Last night there was a strong storm system that went through our area about 2:30 in the morning.  We had 0.7 inches of rain.  We had a few leave clusters from the trees to pick up but we were so fortunate to not get the brunt of the storm.  25 miles to the north of us they are without power with power lines and trees   down all over town.  Rumors are that they had 4.5 inches of rain and 85 mph winds.   A few miles further there are reports of 7 inches of rain.  This was round one.

Round two came this afternoon.  The sky got green and then black.  This is 5:30 p.m. and it is dark out.  The yard light is on.

 There were warnings for strong storms with hail and damaging winds and heavy rain but we got only another inch.  We missed the hail and strong winds. We did have water standing across the road...

In the pasture...

In the field next to the cornfield...

And in front of the compost pile where there is a low area...

This was the pumpkin patch before the storm, full of bright yellow blooms.  Now they look a little beat up.  We will have to see how they fair with the next round predicted around midnight tonight and the round after that predicting more strong storms for tomorrow afternoon.