We all had a grand time during a recent trip to the San Antonio Zoo. Deanna’s mom was visiting from New Hampshire — a perfect reason for a family excursion. To top it off, we rode the famous San Antonio Zoo Eagle train around Brackenridge Park and then made our way over to Pappasito’s for a much-needed fajita feast. What a day!
Yesterday, for the first time since we moved into our home, I was able to watch as my children ran through the backyard -- with grass under their feet. It was such a thrill to cut through the overgrown mess it had become -- crickets rioting in my way and swarms of gnats angrily departing -- and to see the beauty of a trimmed lawn revealed with each pass of the mower. Ah, civilization! Thanks be to God for blessing our efforts. (For the complete saga, see "Planting Our Backyard Lawn," "Bermuda Grass," and "The Grass is Greener").
At last! Our neighborhood's water park and playground were completed just in time for the Fourth of July weekend. This brought an end to a considerable period of speculation about what exactly was being built. The kids have been enjoying the swing set and other play equipment, and the splash-pad is a fun way to cool down on a hot summer day. When the water park is activated, various sprinklers shoot water into the air, and those strange-looking yellow buckets fill with water before tipping to douse the (hopefully) happy recipient below.
My family had a grand time traveling to Patrick's Point State Park along the beautiful northern coast of California, where we enjoyed a four-day camping trip. We hiked trails together, explored a recreated Yurok village, spotted wildlife (especially giant banana slugs), explored the coastline, and visited tide pools. We enjoyed being dwarfed within the awesome quiet of the Redwood forests. And we paid a visit to the Samoa Cookhouse — a lumber camp-style dining hall in operation since 1893, where I imagined I was a famished lumberjack and consumed enough carbs for three continuous lifetimes.
Six years old and ever more like her mommy. We celebrated the birthday of our precious Evelyn this Saturday evening.
No, really. The grass is greener on the other side. Nevertheless, we're seeing some progress in our backyard. Patchy, but greener than before!
Saturday mornings are wonderful. This morning was no exception. We enjoyed delicious coffee and cooked up some crêpes.
We made the leap last week and became bona fide cord-cutters. We switched from a traditional telephone "land-line" at home, provided by SBC, to the new Digital Phone Service from Time Warner Cable.
Time Warner Cable's Digital Phone Service varies slightly from Voice over IP services such as Vonage or AT&T CallVantage. Rather than the typical VoIP piggyback approach of utilizing the existing broadband connection, TWC's service appears to tap into a separate data connection, although still routed through an all-in-one cable modem with a stunning number of glowing, blinking lights.
The audio quality of the calls has been great. And installation was a snap. All that was needed was a phone line running from the cable modem to an existing phone jack. Voilà -- our existing phone equipment works without a hitch and we have unlimited nationwide long distance!
When we moved into our home last year, we knew we would eventually need to plant grass in our backyard. At the time of our move-in, the nature of the challenge seemed remote and manageable. Fresh topsoil had already been installed for us as a part of the home-finishing phase. Seemingly, things would be as simple as planting some grass seed and watering when warm weather came rolling around, right?
Wrong.
Due, in part, to the fact that our home's lot is at a slight incline (climbing toward the street level and dropping toward the backyard), combined with the configuration of our roofline and the resulting redistribution of water around the perimiter of our home, we had a drainage problem sufficient to have washed away our topsoil and carved out some respectable canyons in our backyard by the time the weather began to warm up.
We knew the canyons would only keep growing. We needed some healthy turf established to fend off this sort of unchecked erosion. So, down on our hands and knees went my whole family to pull up the weeds that had begun to take hold, readying the backyard for new soil and a lawn.
Having eliminated the weeds, we called Hill Country Soil & Stone and ordered six cubic yards of "Hill Country Custom Mix" to be delivered by dump truck to our front driveway.
Thankfully, we had the help of my two brothers for a full day of hauling dirt by wheelbarrow into the backyard and raking things smooth. After finishing with the dirt, we stopped to enjoy lunch together, and then got back to work to take care of spreading the grass seed, raking the seed into the soil, spreading fertilizer, as well as getting some stakes hammered in around our three wobbly young trees.
In the coming days, we knew we would need to solve our drainage challenges. Rain was in the forecast. We didn't want to see all of this effort washed away in a single downpour!
The ideal drainage solution would need to be low-maintenance, would be semi-permanent, and would need to successfully route the water over our backyard and into the adjacent field.
I decided to try creating a kind of micro-aqueduct -- a slightly elevated flume that would allow the grass to continue growing while diverting excess water up, over, and out. A Saturday-morning trip to Home Depot revealed the parts we needed. I picked up eight 10\' segments of cheap, vinyl gutter. I also grabbed some 16-gauge wire, some chicken wire, and a plastic painter's tarp.
The "elevators" that would hold the vinyl gutter flume were manufactured from the 16-gauge wire and secured to the flume at certain points using rebar wire. My wife and I stair-stepped the flume to ensure downward flow without excessive leaking.
On the north side of our home, I needed to create an actual dam to stop the flow of water and divert it into the east-running flume. To accomplish this end, I created a frame from the chicken wire, secured the frame to our vinyl fence with rebar wire, punched a hole through it at the lowest ground-level point, framed this hole with duct tape, and then pushed the painter's tarp through the hole and onto the flume and then covered the rest of the frame. I did my best to create an incision into the existing sod along this side of our home, carefully tucking the plastic below the grass-line in the hope of preventing seepage underneath the plastic. I then cut the plastic tarp where it would divert water out into the flume and taped things down in this area with more duct tape. Some rebar wire helped with securing the plastic to the chicken wire frame, and some big rocks helped me feel slightly more confident that the whole contraption wouldn't blow away like a kite.
On the east side of our home, we positioned an additional flume which was intended to catch falling rain from the roofline. Half of the flume would divert water to the north and into the eastbound flume; the other half would drop the water off into the adjacent lot toward the south.
Today, we got hit with our first violent rainstorm. High winds and heavy rainfall put our drainage system to the test. Thankfully, everything worked pretty well, although a few chinks in our anti-aquatic armor were discovered:
So, it looks like we have some fine-tuning ahead of us. I will be sure to post updates, and if all goes well, a first glimpse of Bermuda grass sprouts in the next week or two.
