1. Baling Water
In the morning on one of those days, between the rains of the night before and the rains there were about to come, the fair and industrious Trudy and I stood beside the galvanized tub in the backyard where our leeks and watermelons grow, baling. We took plastic cups, the two of us, and baled the two inches of water from the top of the soil in that tub, soil that was so saturated that the water would not drain out of the leaky bottom.
The tomatoes plants had given up blooming. And the cucumbers. And the Engelmann Daisies And the Coreopsis. Trudy picked a couple of the leeks to put them out of their misery.
We stood there in the morning in our work clothes picking leeks and baling water out of the galvanized tub.
In comparison to the death and destruction wrought on poor souls just south of here, it was of course less than nothing.
3. French Drain
On one of those rainy days, as the water fell from the sky in torrents, I stood at the front door and watched the water run down the gravel of a french drain we put in a couple years ago.
It’s something I’ve taken a liking to when it rains hard: watching the water begin to run across the stones and disappear down into them where the perforated pipe lies hidden. Many days of digging and shoveling went into that, and confess that I find some pleasure in seeing it work.
So I stood there as sheets of rain swept across the street and the gutters filled faster than the downspouts could empty them. And I watched the running water sink into the stones until the pipe would take no more and the stones turned into a creek of water rushing around the corner of the house.
I took a picture of that moment and sent it to my brother, to which he replied, “Wow.” And the rushing creek got deeper. And it got deeper. And still the rains kept coming.
I went into the garage to see if the water was starting to creep under the door. It had come in about a foot.
And just then, the rain let up for a moment. For a few moments. But long enough for the rushing water to go around the corner of the house. Long enough for the water to recede back out from under the garage door.
And as a measure of our fortune if view of so much misfortune around us in those days, that was as bad as it got for us.
2. The Fallacy of Linear Extrapolation
A year ago by now, the heat was upon us. We had long since given up on the hope of more than a handful of tomatoes because of the heat. The daytime temperatures were already consistently climbing into the mid nineties, and the nighttimes were no longer cool enough for fruit to set.
The ground underfoot was as hard as rock.
Heck, less than a month ago, I extrapolated linearly on the wonderful rainfall we had had. And I quipped sarcastically that we only needed that wonder to continue apace for another year and a half in order to restore the water to Lake Travis.
But feast your eyes on this snapshot of the lake levels:
You might guess from that plot which regime I was extrapolating from.