Thursday, August 23, 2012

Windfalls

or Making Room

The rain fell hard.  It struck an orchestra's worth of tones from the hardscape of the city:  dull, thudding drum notes from the roof, staccato tinklings off the metal gate, resonant pings against the windows.  The sidewalks hissed, the swamp cooler chimed like an untuned bell.  The water rushing from the canale by the kitchen door sang as the cistern caught it.

In the garden, amid the living things, the rain fell more quietly.  As I sat slicing peaches near the kitchen window I could hear the soft pattering of droplets on leaves and earth.


The peaches were a gift from an acquaintance.  A windstorm the night before had blown several bushels of soft, ripe fruit from her trees, and she was anxious that they be put to use.  I gladly came away with a couple of bags, and spent the evening peeling and pitting, cutting away bruises and blemishes.  The fragrance of peaches, the fragrance of rain, both of them were unexpected and precious.  They mingled beguilingly while the wind blew cool.  The practical part of me, the part that wasn't giddy with ambrosia, wondered what to do with the quantities of fruit.  As I worked and pondered I kept a watchful eye on the canale.

The canale in question (on a sunnier day).

It's in an odd place, draining over a tight corner between the house and the little wall and gate that divide front from back.  Left to its own devices in a heavy rain the canale can send torrents of water gushing down.  The force eats away at the base of the wall and washes little arroyos into the crusher fines on the path between the houses.  It's my own flash flood zone in miniature, a small version of the floods that are always the flip side of drought.

In Albuquerque, with the sheer limestone and granite cliffs of the Sandia Mountains on the edge of town, the sun-baked, packed earth in the foothills, and the concrete and asphalt of the city, an intense storm can send a mountain's worth of rain down from the heights to flood the valley in short order.  Hard surfaces can't take in all that water at once, so you have to divert the water and temporarily make room for it elsewhere.  The city has an extensive network of arroyos and catchment areas to cope with the problem.  I have a much smaller problem, and a cistern.


Sorry about the trash can, but it has to go somewhere.

A glazed pot, really, partially filled with gravel.  The pot catches the water pouring from the canale, and the drainage hole in the bottom of the pot lets the water out again in a smaller stream.  To slow the water even more, a shallow trench, deepening as it gets farther from the foundation of the house, is filled with gravel and planted with vinca; the far end of the trench waters one of the boxwoods. 

The rain that night was the hardest we've had since I set up the drainage system, and I was pleased to see that this bit of hardscaping worked.  The flow from the cistern wasn't forceful enough even to budge the gravel underneath; the overflow from the trench puddled in the crusher fines but didn't wash them away.  The rain was a lot of a good thing rather than too much.  It was a windfall, like the peaches, a generosity in life to be enjoyed all of a sudden.

The peaches have been turned into a simple sauce, ripe for a touch of culinary brilliance, should I have one, this autumn or winter.   Fortunately I had just cleared out the freezer anyway, making room by chance for all this bounty.  The pint jars glow with summer light every time I open the freezer door.

Peaches and rain:  reminders to make room for those moments when the feast-or-famine winds of life turn sharply toward feasting.  Room, so that a windfall isn't left to lie, feeding no one.  Room, so that a shower of good things doesn't run off unyielding surfaces.  Room, so that good things can soak into the soft places, bringing life to thirsty roots.

Room to enjoy a lot of a good thing, all of a sudden.

20 comments:

  1. Brilliant idea to mitigate the streaming rain. It felt like a flash flood last week. One of my co-workers was stuck on the rail runner going back to Albuquerque and didn't make it home until 9:00 pm that evening.

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    1. Thanks, GirlSprout. I tried a rain barrel in that corner, but it didn't fit (and looked ugly besides). The flooded Rail Runner bridge sure re-organized a lot of people's evenings all at once.

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  2. How wonderful to be enjoying such abundance of good things! I could almost smell the mingling of peach aroma with the scent of coming rain. Heavenly! And how smart are you to create such a rain disbursement system that allows water to be used as beneficial irrigation instead of a destructive deluge! I almost wish I had a canale so I could have one of these, too!

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    1. Holley, gutters are nothing to be sneezed at! Canales aren't as effective, though maybe when you only get 8 or 9" of rain a year "effective enough" is just fine. I've seen some great water catchment systems in the last couple of weeks, and mine is very cute and modest in comparison!

      The scents of peaches and rain together really are heavenly. Wow.

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  3. What a simple, effective and attractive solution. Do you try a catchment system also for watering your garden during drier times?

    As for those peaches - I'm on my way!!

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    1. Thank you, Karen. My drainage problems were a piece of cake to handle compared to yours... In fact, the comparison is making me laugh! Other than a rain barrel under the other canale I haven't done anything else with water catchment. The rain barrel has filled up almost four times this summer, which has been enough to keep a long, skinny side bed along the front half of the house watered. The builders sloped the garden a little bit toward one side for drainage to the street, and I've tried not to mess with that, and planted slightly thirstier things on that side. No fancy holding ponds or anything, though!

      By all means come enjoy the peaches!

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  4. Stacy such lovely words as I was taken into the storm and out again into the cistern....I developed rain gardens just for that purpose...so the run off would feed those areas of the garden...no waste here....oh and I love peaches and would have been giddy to get bags full...

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    1. Donna, thank you. Your rain gardens are on a much different scale than mine, as is your rain! It's always good to be able to turn a necessity like drainage into one of the garden's assets. The fresh peaches made me so happy! I love, love, love them but don't even bother buying them at the store any more, because they're always disappointing. To have all the genuine tree-ripened peaches I could eat pretty well sent me over the moon.

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  5. I was so taken with the singing colours, the soft aqua, the glowing terracotta -that I wouldn't have seen the bin, if you hadn't mentioned it. And what fun to enjoy heavy rain in your rain garden.

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    1. Diana, my dad always says not to advertise your mistakes, because generally people won't notice them, but the trash can loomed pretty large to me... The colors are warm most of the time, but they really do glow when they're wet. I'd like to enjoy a little more of that heavy rain, please!

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  6. Stacy, What a fascinating bit of engineering you've done here to both cope with and make the best of the rain that comes your way. Because I'm at the top of a hill with almost no hard surfaces (on a dirt road) and with sandy soil that seems to be able to absorb almost infinite amounts of water, I've never had to think about these issues. I love the idea that simple devices like a glazed pot turned into a cistern can have such a big impact. (I also love that opening sky scape; wonderful!) -Jean

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    1. Thank you, Jean. A while back my dad and I were brainstorming ways to use drip-irrigation tubing to direct even more of the water to the plants, but I haven't gotten serious about taking action yet.

      Once you're living in Maine during mud season, you might come up with all sorts of ingenious (and marketable!) ways to keep water off that dirt road...

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  7. Oh my goodness, I can almost smell those peaches all the way over here to London! We do get some flash floods from time to time here, both in the summer and in the winter, but the ample guttering system on my house usually takes most of it. I am so happy you all seem to have got some rain over there, not enough though it seems, from what we hear on the news, hope you get more of the free stuff from above, both peaches and rain :-)

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    1. Helene, part of the problem here is that we get so little rain in general that we're not really adequately equipped when we do. The thought of "ample guttering" is just so lovely. Here's to more of that wonderful free stuff from above for everyone!

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  8. Beautiful words, I could almost smell those peaches.

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    1. Janet, thank you. Fresh peaches are half the point of summer, I think. (Maybe not quite half. But close!)

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  9. Thanks for sharing these majestic images. Ill probably never see the likes of again because I'm now a quadriplegic.So just know somebody else is enjoying your work.

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    1. Patrick, thank you for your lovely words, and for taking the time to comment. I'm glad you enjoyed the images. I'm sorry, though, that life has thrown you such unkind challenges. I hope the "Garden" in your ID means that you have a place of beauty to enjoy outdoors. Wishing you good spirits and rich experiences--
      Stacy

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  10. I'm tempted to go and empty out a freezer compartment but I understand that a partially-filled freezer is less efficient and I could be waiting for quite a while.

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    1. It's a conundrum, b-a-g. Maybe fill the freezer with water jugs, which will keep it humming along efficiently until the very day you are overwhelmed with peaches? That way you've hedged all the bets. Good to see you out and about!

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