A band of thunderstorms came across North Carolina this evening, and our home is drenched. This made it a good night to check the new French drain and gravel path that runs the side of the house. It seems to be working, though a lot of water that runs off the driveway and there’s some puddling still under the big white oak. The shed is leaking, too, even though we paid a guy to patch the roof last summer.
When it rains, I have this urge to go outside and evaluate the gutters, the gullies, the puddles, and the pools. As a boy, I would make dams in the mud, and redirect streams into small ponds of my making. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Vanuatu, stuck in our house for a week at a time while cyclone rains pounded the tin roof, I moved jars around the floor to catch water dripping through the nail holes in the tin, and I watched nervously from the door as rivers of water and mud formed outside.
The rain tonight was welcome, watering the newly seeded lawn all around this solid, dry, silent house.
© Anton Zuiker