4.03.2006

In Other News...

Not a lot of drawing going on over the weekend...I spent most of Saturday and a good deal of Sunday in the backyard, working on "curb appeal" and trying to solve some drainage issues around the foundation of the house, in advance of putting in a brick patio one of these days. Here's the thing: every time it rains, our backyard (which resembles Oklahoma of the late 20s) turns in to a massive mudhole, especially around the southeast corner, where the hypothetical patio will reside. The gutters drain directly onto the rock hard, non-porous "soil", and the water that doesn't end up in our basement sits there for several days. The solution, at which I arrived thanks to my Dad's advice, was to dig an 60 ft. trench away from the house, fill it with 2" PVC pipe, and drain the water into the alley in the back of the house.

It was only about 8" deep, and I had a lot of help thanks to the inexplicably energetic Mr. Babb, but sweet jeebus was it a pain! It's Monday night, and I'm still sore all over. I hurt in places I didn't know I had (my hands in particular for some reason). But its awesome...and as if to reward my hard work, we had a huge storm this evening and eureka, it works!

We also added some much-needed plant life to our dust bowl of a backyard...Brooke chose the plants and I dug the holes, and it looks pretty goldang swanky, if I do say so myself. Puck even got in on the action, watering one of the shrubs before we even put it in the ground. Oh, them pups!

Anyhow, the obligatory photos:

That's 60 feet, bitches!




"I was only trying to help!"


Looks even better in person.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I was just forwarded here from Joel's site and I must say this entry is the best ever!

Actually, I've seen your work before and I'm a big fan. Honestly, who doesn't love sexy women?

Robert Ullman said...

Ah yes...Joel's infamous "laying pipe" reference. That rascal!

Welcome, Jim...feel free to have a look around the place!

Anonymous said...

just for your information just in case you were not aware of it your typical stone patio usually sits 6-8 inches into the ground so allow for your stones not to shift or move around once the ground freezes and thaws so you would actually want your drainage pipe deeper in the ground at that point near your house