Who'll stop the rain?

By 4PM this afternoon, Springfield had endured unrelenting thunderstorms and a total rain accumulation of four inches. We've had erosion and runoff problems in the backyard since we moved to this house 24 years ago. In an effort to manage this problem, we constucted a 2 foot deep or so by 4 to 5 feet wide rock lined trench to control the runoff and minimize further damage. The resulting spillway, for lack of a better word, was a huge project that stretched over many years, and still is not completed to our satisfaction. The large collection area at the uphill end is deeper than the rest of the channel, and we had hoped it would hold water but the pond liner must have been breached by the rocks. It's also filled in with mud from some heavy rains earlier in the year. However, imperfect as it is in its current state, the spillway has afforded us opportunities to play with the landscape and attract wildlife, like toads and chipmunks, that we did not have in abundance previously. And it does control the runoff. Unless we have a 100-year rain, which we seem to get about, oh, once a year anymore.


This is what it looked and sounded like this morning at 10AM with just shy of two inches having fallen. The fence was just starting to lean.





This is what greeted me when I got home from work about 3PM. The fence had been pushed over quite noticeably by the persistent assault of swirling, pounding water. You can see the tops of the plants in one of my rain gardens just upstream from the fence. I don't think I lost any of them, but I can't see the sedges in the video. They were most likely completely submerged, but I'll find out later today or tomorrow if they're still out there at all.

Right, then, time to get out and grab a shovel.